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THE 

Building  of  a  Cathedral 


BY 

HENRY  Y.  SATTERLEE,  D.  D.,  LL.  D. 
Bishop  of  Washington 


New  York 

EDWIN  S.  GORHAM 

Church  Missions  House 

Fourth  Avenue  and  Twenty-second  Street 


ARRANGED  BY  AND  PRESS  OF 
BYRON  8.  ADAMS 
Washington,  D.  C. 


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PREFACE 

This  little  book  is  sent  forth  in  response  to  the 
ever-growing  demand  for  more  definite  and  detailed 
information  concerning  the  Cathedral  of  SS.  Peter 
and  Paul  in  Washington. 

It  has  been  a  labour  of  love  to  write  it ;  not  only  in 
grateful  remembrance  of  those  Cathedral  workers  in 
Washington,  who  have  gone  before  us,  but  because  the 
ideal  of  a  cathedral,  like  its  majestic  watch  tower,  soars 
so  high  toward  God  and  His  Heaven  above  the  crowded 
streets  of  the  city  and  the  noisy  din  of  earthly  life. 
And  this  ideal  has  been  inspired  by  Christ  Himself. 

As  men  gaze,  first  at  that,  which,  in  popular  par- 
lance, is  called  "  institutional  religion,"  with  its  parish 
churches  and  cathedrals ;  then,  at  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
travelling  on  foot  and  preaching  the  Gospel  to  the  poor, 
the  question  often  arises :  "  Are  there  not  here,  in  vivid 
contrast,  two  types  of  the  Christian  religion,  which 
can  never  be  reconciled  ?  " 

In  silent  response,  as  it  were,  Gospel  history  holds 
up  another  contrast — Christ  in  Galilee  and  Christ  at 
Jerusalem.  These  two  types  of  religion  are  united  in 
Christ's  own  many-sided  life.  When,  beside  Christ 
"  the  carpenter's  Son  "  of  Galilee,  we  place  the  equally 
vivid  Bible  picture  of  Christ,  "  the  Son  of  David,"  in  the 


8         THE  CATHEDRAL  OP  THE  FUTURE. 

Holy  City,  we  behold  our  Lord  Himself  inspiring  every 
true  ideal  of  Church  life.  In  New  Testament  days  there 
were  synagogues  without  number  in  Galilee,  Samaria 
and  Judea,  but  the  only  church  building  in  all  Palestine 
was  the  Temple,  that  great  Duomo  or  Cathedral  of  the 
ancient  Jews ;  and  the  Gospel  shows  us  how  Christ 
loved  this  Temple.  In  His  childhood,  when  His  par- 
ents sought  Him  sorrowing,  He  said  to  them  :  "  Wist 
ye  not  that  I  must  be  in  My  Father's  house  ?  "  (compare 
S.  Luke  ii :  49,  R.  V.).  Years  afterward,  when  He 
began  His  public  ministry,  He  went  up  to  the  Temple 
and,  casting  out  the  buyers  and  sellers,  He  said : 
"  Make  not  My  Father's  house  a  house  of  merchan- 
dise." And  when  the  chief  priests  asked  Him  by  what 
right  He  did  this  and  what  sign  He  had  to  show 
of  His  authority,  He  answered  :  "  Destroy  this  Temple, 
and  in  three  days  I  will  raise  it  up  "  (S.  John  ii :  19), 
revealing  to  those  unbelieving  Jews  the  profound  truth 
that  their  Temple  was  a  type  and  symbol  of  His  own 
Incarnation. 

Three  years  afterwards,  at  the  very  end  of  His  pub- 
lic ministry,  Christ  made  His  triumphal  entry  into  the 
Holy  City,  as  King  of  the  Jews,  amid  the  welcoming 
hosannas  of  the  multitudes,  and  rode  through  the 
streets  of  Jerusalem  to  the  same  Temple. 

The  last  voice  of  the  Old  Testament  had  sent  out 
the  prophetic  cry,  "  The  Lord  whom  ye  seek  shall  sud- 


PREFACE.  9 

denly  come  to  His  Temple  ";  and  when,  in  fulfilment  of 
this  prophecy,  Christ  cleansed  His  Temple  for  the  last 
time  and  proclaimed,  "  My  house  shall  be  called  the 
house  of  prayer,  but  ye  have  made  it  a  den  of  thieves," 
He  stood  not  only  before  the  Jews  like  one  of  their 
ancient  prophets,  but  before  the  whole  world  as  the 
Judge  of  the  quick  and  dead,  who  now  gave  sentence 
that  judgement  must  begin  at  the  House  of  God ;  and 
is  not  this  warning,  at  the  same  time,  a  solemn  charge 
sent  out  into  the  future,  that,  henceforth,  every  Christ- 
ian church  should  be  known,  first  of  all,  as  a  house  of 
prayer  ? 

The  more  we  ponder  that  simple  description  given 
by  Christ — "  My  house  shall  be  called  a  house  of 
prayer  for  all  nations" — the  more  profound  and 
comprehensive  it  becomes.  Every  Christian  church 
is  a  house  of  prayer  in  a  far  higher  sense  than  the 
vanished  Jewish  Temple  could  ever  become,  for  all 
types  and  symbols  have  been  fulfilled  in  Christ  Him- 
self, and  the  clear  light  now  shineth. 

A  cathedral  stands  as  a  ceaseless  witness  for  Jesus 
Christ  and  His  Incarnation,  while  the  Church  of  Christ 
prays  and  labours  for  the  coming  of  His  kingdom. 
At  the  same  time  it  is  a  prophetic  and  ever 
present  reminder  of  the  coming  day  of  Christ,  when 
God  shall  create  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth,  and 
when  the  social  bond  of  brotherhood  in  Christ  shall  be 


10        THE  CATHEDRAL  OF  THE  FUTURE. 

fully  revealed  in  that  city  of  God,  the  new  Jerusalem 
which  conieth  down  from  God  out  of  heaven. 

In  so  far  as  the  cathedrals  of  the  past  have  fulfilled 
this  idea  of  a  home  of  prayer  has  their  work  been 
blessed  ;  where  they  have  come  short  of  it,  they  have 
been  deserted  more  and  more  by  the  people,  until  at 
last,  as  in  the  instance  of  the  old  abbeys  of  England, 
they  have  crumbled  into  ruins.* 

Looking  backward,  we  cannot  fail  to  realise  how 
far  these  cathedrals  of  the  past,  notwithstanding  all 
their  hallowed  associations  and  historic  memories, 
have  fallen  short  of  this  ideal.  Though  they  have 
silently  stood,  for  century  after  century,  as  witnesses 
for  Christ,  and  monuments  of  the  continuity  of  that 
church  which  was  the  beacon  light  of  the  dark  ages,  they 
not  only  influenced  each  passing  age  for  good,  but 
were  in  their  own  history  influenced  too  much  by  its 
evil.  And,  yet,  this  is  no  argument  against  cathedrals, 
for  does  not  the  same  sad  truth  appear  in  the  manifold 
life  of  the  Church  herself,  throughout  mediaeval  times? 

Looking  forward,  as  children  of  light,  we  hear  a 

voice  from  heaven  which  bids  us  forget  those  things 

which  are  behind ;  and  breathing  the  inspirations  of 

the  future,  to  reach  forward   to   the  glorious  things 

which  are  before  us,  as  the  Christ  light  grows  brighter 

*If  the  English  nation  had  felt  that  these  Abbeys  were  real 
houses  of  God  which  belonged  to  all  Christian  people,  the  political 
power  of  the  State  could  never  have  caused  their  destruction. 


PREFACE.  11 

with  each  coming  century  and  the  earth  "  sweeps  into 
the  younger  day." 

As  the  Christian  world  becomes  more  and  more 
illumined  by  the  Light  which  lighteth  every  man  that 
cometh  into  the  world,  the  ideal  of  the  cathedral  of 
the  future  cannot  fail  to  be  higher  and  broader  than 
that  cherished  by  the  cathedral  builders  of  the  past. 

Though  Christ's  Incarnation,  in  its  length  and 
breadth  and  height  and  depth,  passes  all  understand- 
ing :  though  it  is,  we  are  told,  a  mystery  which  the 
angels  themselves  desire  to  look  into,  yet,  there  is 
ceaseless  progress  in  human  apprehension  of  its  truth. 
Certainly,  the  Incarnation  has  never  meant  so  much, 
through  all  the  nineteen  centuries  of  the  past,  as  it 
means  to  the  Christian  world  to-day. 

As  these  words  are  being  written,  the  blessed  Christ- 
mas-tide is  at  hand.  The  time  draws  near  the  birth 
of  Christ,  when  the  bewildering  fullness  of  that 
prophecy  was  unveiled  :  "  Behold  the  Tabernacle  of 
God  is  with  men  and  He  will  dwell  with  them  and 
they  shall  be  His  people."  The  Incarnation  of  our 
Lord,  which  was  first  revealed  when  He  lay,  a  Babe 
newborn,  in  the  manger  of  Bethlehem,  brings  ever 
fresh  and  new  revelations,  as  He  rises  from  the  grave  ; 
as  He  ascends  to  heaven,  a  reigning  King,  to  whom 
"  All  power  is  given  in  heaven  and  on  earth  "  ;   as  He 


12        THE  CATHEDRAL  OF  THE  FUTURE. 

prepares  the  world  for  that  day  when  He  shall  return 
in  the  clouds  of  heaven  to  be  our  incarnate  Judge. 

Even  then,  a  series  of  fresh  revelations  begin.  The 
New  Testament  does  not  stop  with  the  Judgement  Day, 
but  goes  onward.  It  holds  up  the  Incarnation,  as  the 
central  truth  of  God's  revelation  to  man,  and  tells  us 
that  "  in  the  dispensation  of  the  fullness  of  time  God 
will  gather  together  into  one,  all  things  in  Christ,  both 
which  are  in  heaven  and  which  are  on  earth." 

It  is  not  given  to  the  Church  on  earth  to  know  the 
many  things  which  our  Lord  has  yet  to  say  unto  us, 
but  she  can  distinguish  already,  as  civilization  advances, 
and  new  needs,  new  questions  and  new  problems  arise, 
that  many  of  these  can  never  be  met,  or  solved,  or 
reconciled  with  one  another,  apart  from  Christ ;  and 
she  has  His  promise  of  an  Infallible  Guide,  in  the 
Spirit  of  Truth,  who  shall  lead  her  into  all  Truth. 

She  may  not  be  able  to  explain,  all  at  once,  in  defi- 
nite terms,  how  Christ's  Incarnation  is  the  solution  of 
every  problem  of  Nature,  of  human  life  and  human 
destiny,  but  she  is  set  in  this  world  by  her  Lord  to  face 
this  task  bravely,  patiently  and  honestly.  In  the 
light  of  Christ's  life  she  must  strive  to  meet  the  intel- 
lectual questions  and  the  social  needs  of  the  times  by 
a  new  interpretation  of  New  Testament  facts,  which 
will  bring  the  old  Gospel  truth  home,  in  all  its  fresh- 
ness, to  the  hearts  of  thinking,  struggling  men.     And 


PREFACE.  13 

she  must  do  this,  not  only  in  all  honesty  but  with  all 
humility. 

While  the  Church  is  consecrated  and  commissioned 
to  be  a  fearless  witness  for  Jesus  Christ  and  for  the  Faith 
once  for  all  delivered  to  the  Saints,  she  must  not  only 
teach,  but  be  taught  by  every  successive  age,  and 
patiently  learn  God's  lessons  from  the  progress  of  the 
world  itself.  And  if  she  strives  to  do  this,  through 
parochial  ministrations  and  pastoral  efforts  in  every 
town  and  village,  she  should  do  it  pre-eminently 
through  her  cathedrals — for  the  sphere  of  a  cathedral 
is  altogether  different  from  that  of  a  parish  church. 
It  is  not  pastoral,  but  evangelistic. 

It  is  to  deliver  the  ringing  Gospel  message,  the 
good  news  from  Heaven,  in  such  a  way  as  to  win  the 
ear  of  large  masses  of  men  and  be  in  touch  with  their 
thought.  It  is  to  be  a  watch  tower,  from  which  the 
signs  of  the  times  are  detected  ;  a  centre,  in  which 
inspiring  missionary  or  social  movements  originate,  and 
from  which  earnest  evangelists  go  forth.  It  is  to  be  a 
home  of  religious  learning,  and  a  storehouse  of  Chris- 
tian information,  in  whose  scholastic  and  cloistered 
atmosphere,  real  teachers  of  teachers  may  be  found. 
It  is  to  be  a  school  of  the  Prophets,  where  devout  and 
intellectual  students  may  ponder  the  questions  of  the 
day,  side  by  side  with  the  facts  of  the  Gospel ;  where 
all  inquirers  will  discover  that  the  Christian  Church  is 


14        THE  CATHEDRAL  OF  THE  FUTURE. 

abreast,  with  an  ever-advancing  secular  education  in 
science  and  in  history  ;  where  skilled  theologians,  and 
interpreters  of  "  the  Queen  of  sciences,"  shall  be  com- 
petent to  translate  the  doctrinal  truths  of  theology  into 
the  common  language  of  life,  in  such  a  way  as  to  take 
hold  of  the  living  convictions  of  thinking  men.* 

This  is  the  way  in  which  the  Cathedral  of  the  future 
should  stand  forth  as  a  living  witness  for  Jesus  Christ 
and  His  Religion.  If  all  knowledge  is  power,  knowl- 
edge of  God  and  of  Christ's  Incarnation  is  "  Life 
eternal "  (S.  John  xvii :  3,  I  John  v  :  20).  The  burden 
of  the  most  earnest,  oft  repeated  prayer  in  God's  House 
of  Prayer  should  be  : 

"  Thy  kingdom  come. 
Thy  will  be  done 
On  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven." 

The  cathedral  ideal  beckons  us  onward.  It  points  to 
the  dawning  Christ  light.     It  tells  us  that  God's  kiug- 

*  The  new  post-graduate  university  which  has  just  been  founded 
in  Washington  this  winter,  and  endowed  by  Andrew  Carnegie, 
cannot  fail  to  make  the  Capital  of  the  country  more  and  more  of  a 
centre  of  education,  to  which  learned  men  and  experts  in  every 
branch  of  science  will  be  drawn.  All  this,  when  viewed  from  the 
right  standpoint,  is,  undoubtedly,  a  work  for  God  and  the  advance- 
ment of  His  Kingdom.  But  it  is  only  one  side  of  that  work,  and  that 
the  earthward  side.  The  very  earnestness  with  which  this  one  side 
of  the  truth  is  presented  makes  it  necessary  that  the  Church 
should  present,  with  equal  force,  ability  and  expert  knowledge, 
that  other  and  heavenward  side,  which  has  been  revealed  to  us  by 
the  incarnate  Son  of  God,  who  is  Himself  the  Way,  the  Truth  and 
the  Life.  The  more  we,  as  Christians,  welcome  every  advance  in 
secular  knowledge,  the  more  deeply  we  should  feel  our  responsi- 
bility to  Christ  for  supplementing  it  with  the  higher  spiritual 
knowledge  of  His  Gospel. 


PREFACE.  15 

dom  will  come,  when  Christ's  own  Spirit  comes  into 
the  hearts  of  sinful  men  and  overcomes  the  self-will  of 
the  world.  It  is  ours,  in  our  time  and  generation  to 
realise — that  is,  make  real  in  our  thought  and  action — 
the  grandeur  of  our  ideal,  in  its  many  sided  possibili- 
ties and  opportunities ;  in  its  organization  and  its 
work ;  in  its  spiritual  influence  and  practical  useful- 
ness. 

HENRY  Y.  SATTERLEE. 


Christmas  Eve,  1901. 


Table  of  Contents 


Chapter  I.  page. 

Brief  Historical  Account  of  the  Beginnings  of  a  Washington 

Cathedral 19 

Chapter  II. 
The  Cathedral  Foundation  of  SS.  Peter  and  Paul 26 

Chapter  III. 
The  Cathedral  Close  and  Its  Situation 41 

Chapter  IV. 
The  Cathedral  Organization 45 

Chapter  V. 
The  Object  and  Purpose  of  the  Washington  Cathedral ....     54 

Chapter  VI. 

The  Cathedral  as  a  Witness  for  Jesus  Christ  and  the  Historic 

Church 68 

Chapter  VII. 
The  Cathedral  as  a  Witness  for  Historic  American  Memories  .      72 

Chapter  VIII. 
The  Cathedral  of  a  Free  Church  in  a  Free  State 76 

Chapter  IX. 
The  Cathedral  Building 81 

Appendix. 
The  Financial  Outlook 85 


Rt.  Rev.  Thomas  John  Claggett,  D.  D. 

First  Bishop  of  Maryland 


Rt.  Rev.  William  Paret,  D.  D.,  LL.  D. 

Present  Bishop  of  Maryland 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OP  THE  CATHEDRAL.  19 


CHAPTER  I. 

Brief   Historical  Account  of  the  Beginnings 
of  a  Washington  Cathedral. 

THE  origin  of  the  city  of  Washington  was  due  to 
causes  directly  connected  with  the  government  of 
the  new-born  country  created  by  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence of  1776.  Though  Philadelphia,  New  York, 
Baltimore  and  other  places  proffered  a  home  for  the 
President,  Congress,  and  Supreme  Court  of  this  new 
nation  of  the  world,  it  was  felt  that  the  local  interests  and 
associations  of  any  one  of  the  thirteen  States  were  too 
strong,  and  the  general  government  of  the  United  States 
too  weak,  to  accept  such  offers.  And  in  1791  Congress 
decreed  that,  after  ten  years,  the  government  should 
be  removed  to  that  "  Federal  District"  of  ten  square 
miles  which  had  been  given  for  its  exclusive  use  by  the 
States  of  Virginia  and  Maryland.  The  different  rea- 
sons which  led  to  this  decision,  the  conflicting  inter- 
ests which  it  reconciled,  and  the  various  compromises 
which  brought  it  about,  form  a  story  of  deep  interest, 
which  every  American  should  read. 

Thus,  from  its  very  beginning,  the  capital  of  the 
United  States  was  identified  with  interests  and  influ- 
ences, associations  and  traditions  of  the  general  govern- 
ment, and  in  a  way  which  makes  its  history  stand  abso- 
lutely unique  in  the  annals  of  all  national  capitals.  Like 


20  THE  BUILDING  OP  A  CATHEDRAL. 

that  government  itself,  its  capital  city  is  created  by  the 
people  and  for  the  people.  Whatever  other  interests  have 
been  founded  or  institutions  planted  in  Washington — 
whether  religious  or  educational,  commercial  or  finan- 
cial— they  have  all  come  in  subsequent  days,  and  as  a 
result  of  those  beneficent  influences  which  are  safe- 
guarded by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  In 
proportion  as  the  country  at  large  has  been  blessed,  so 
has  its  capital  been  blessed.  In  proportion  as  the 
country  has  grown,  in  exactly  such  ratio  has  the  popula- 
tion of  its  capital  increased.  In  proportion  as  the  best 
influences  of  religion  and  education,  of  science  and  art 
are  enriching  the  life  of  the  people  at  large,  in  such 
proportion  are  they  enriching  and  finding  a  centre  in 
the  life  of  its  capital. 

When  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  determined 
in  1791  that  the  "  Federal  City"  as  it  was  then  called,* 
should  be  the  future  capital  of  the  United  States, 
President  Washington  employed  Major  FEnfant,  a 
French  architect,  to  lay  out  the  plan  of  the  city,  and 
among  other  buildings,  there  was  to  be  a  great  church 

*  In  answer  to  many  inquiries  as  to  how  the  name  of  the 
city  of  Washington  originated,  and  how  so  modest  and  retiring 
a  leader  as  Washington  allowed  it  to  be  called  after  himself,  the 
following  facte  may  be  of  interest:  At  first  the  only  names 
by  which  the  capital  of  the  country  was  known  were  "the 
Federal  District"  and  "the  Federal  City."  But  the  feeling 
kept  growing  stronger  and  stronger  that  such  abstract  names 
were  too  impersonal  to  evoke  interest,  consequently,  in  September, 
1791,  the  three  Commissioners  of  the  District  met  to  consider 
this  matter  and  invited  Mr.  James  Madison  and  Mr.  Thomas 
Jefferson  to  join  them.  When  the  meeting  was  over,  they 
announced  that  the  name  of  the  Federal  District  was  henceforth 
to  be  "  the  District  of  Columbia  "  and  that  of  the  Federal  City 
"  the  City  of  Washington." 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CATHEDRAL.  21 

on  a  selected  site,  not  far  from  the  City  Hall.  Major 
l'Enfant's  words  are  as  follows  : 

"  A  church  (should  be  erected)  for  national  purposes, 
such  as  public  prayer,  thanksgiving,  funeral  orations, 
etc. ;  and  be  assigned  to  the  special  use  of  no  particular 
denomination  or  sect ;  but  be  equally  open  to  all.  It 
will  likewise  be  a  shelter  far  such  monuments  as  were 
voted  by  the  last  Continental  Congress  for  the  heroes 
who  fell  in  the  cause  of  liberty." 

But,  of  course,  the  erection  of  such  a  church  was 
found  to  be  impossible,  in  a  land  where  Church  and 
state  are  irrevocably  separated  ;  and  therefore,  nothing 
was,  or  could  be,  done  in  this  direction.  The  idea  was 
therefore  abandoned  and  the  chosen  site  was  afterward 
appropriated  to  the  erection  of  the  present  Patent 
Office. 

About  that  same  time  Mr.  Joseph  Nourse  was 
appointed  by  President  Washington  as  First  Registrar 
of  the  Treasury.  He  was  not  only  one  of  the  first 
civil  officers  of  the  Government,  and  the  personal 
friend  of  the  father  of  our  country,  but  a  deeply  relig- 
ious man.  His  residence  was  within  the  boundaries 
of  the  Federal  District.  Like  some  of  the  old  Hebrew 
patriarchs,  he  was  wont  to  find  a  sanctuary  of  God  in 
the  hill  overlooking  the  city,  and  to  retire  for  seclu- 
sion and  communion  with  God  under  the  gothic  arches 
of  the  wood  on  Mount  Alban,  where  he  lived.  It  was 
his  constant  prayer — so  runs  the  tradition  which  has 
been  handed  down — that,  at  some  future  day,  a  church 
should  be  built  on  this  self-same  hill,  which  should 
stand  as  a  witness  for  Jesus  Christ  and  His  Gospel. 


22  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

Little  did  he  then  realise  the  way  in  which  this  prayer 
was  to  be  answered. 

Years  after  he  had  gone  to  his  rest  the  old  residence 
od  Mount  Alban  was  sold  and  changed  into  St.  John's 
Church  School  for  Boys.  An  upper  room  of  this 
school  was  fitted  up  by  the  Principal,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Ten 
Broeck,  as  a  chapel ;  and  here  the  granddaughter  of 
Joseph  Nourse  came,  year  after  year,  to  teach 
Sunday  School,  until  her  health  failed.  After  her 
death,  in  1850,  a  small  box  was  found  containing 
forty  gold  dollars — the  proceeds  of  her  needlework  as 
an  invalid — and  on  its  cover  were  inscribed  the  words  : 
"  For  a  free  church  on  Alban  hill."  A  fund  was  then 
started  to  build  ;  the  boys  of  St.  John's  School  dug  the 
foundation,  and  three  or  four  years  afterwards,  St. 
Alban's,  the  first  free  church  in  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia, was  completed.  From  that  day,  for  fifty  years, 
without  the  omission  of  a  single  Sunday's  service,  that 
church  has  remained  there,  with  open  doors,  conse- 
crating the  site  with  its  prayers  and  its  eucharists  ; 
and  again  and  again,  the  surrounding  property  would 
have  been  purchased  for  secular  purposes  had  not  this 
little  sanctuary  of  God  stood  there,  like  a  sentinel, 
guarding  it  from  all  but  sacred  uses. 

During  the  Civil  War  the  Rev.  John  H.  Chew,  a 
grandson  of  Bishop  Claggett,  was  called  to  be  Rector, 
and  from  1861  to  1865,  St.  Alban's  Church  was  fre- 
quently used  as  a  hospital  for  the  Union  Army,  but, 
strange  to  say,  this  did  not  cause  the  interruption  of  a 
single  Sunday's  service ;  in  fact,  for  year  after  year 
during  that   eventful  period,    the  uniformed  soldiers 


Saint  Alban*s  Church,  A.  D.  1855 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CATHEDRAL.  23 

themselves  with  their  officers  formed  the  greater  part 
of  the  church  congregations. 

After  the  war  was  over,  at  a  meeting  of  the  clergy 
which  was  being  held  in  St.  Alban's  the  subject  of  a 
new  diocese  of  Washington  was  earnestly  debated. 
When  the  meeting  adjourned  the  celebrated  rector  of 
the  Church  of  the  Epiphany,  Dr.  Charles  H.  Hall, 
said  :  "  This  new  diocese  sooner  or  later  will  and  must 
be  created.  And  when  it  does  come,"  said  he,  stretch- 
ing his  hand  toward  the  beautiful  prospect  of  the  city 
of  Washington,  "  this  must  be  the  site  of  its  Cathe- 
dral." 

But  the  idea  of  the  Cathedral  preceded  that  of  the 
diocese.  Other  Christian  bodies  have  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  such  great  schools  of  learning  as  the  Ameri- 
can University  of  the  Methodists,  the  Catholic  Uni- 
versity of  the  Romanists,  and  the  Columbian  University 
of  the  Baptists,  but  it  was  left  for  our  own  Church  to 
make  the  first  move  in  this  direction.  Under  such 
circumstances  and  traditions,  associations  and  memo- 
ries, it  was  fitting  that  she  should  fill  a  real  need  aDd 
build  a  great  House  of  Prayer  for  all  people  in  the 
capital  of  our  country. 

The  first  impulse  was  given  by  a  proposed  donation 
of  property,  valued  at  $70,000,  from  Miss  Elizabeth 
Mann,  to  be  an  endowment  for  the  support  of  a 
Cathedral  Foundation  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 
The  Right  Rev.  Dr.  William  Paret,  Bishop  of  Mary- 
land, who  had  always  seen  the  need  of  a  Cathedral 
in  the  capital  of  the  country,  now  felt  that  the 
way  was  opened  for  the  practical  realisation  of  this 


24  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

long  cherished  aim,  and,  throwing  himself  heartily 
into  the  project,  he  used  his  great  influence  in 
its  behalf.  Several  consultations  were  held  between 
the  Bishop,  the  Rev.  Dr.  George  William  Douglas, 
Rector  of  S.  John's  Church,  Washington,  and  Mr. 
Charles  C.  Glover,  the  President  of  the  Riggs  Bank, 
all  of  whom  were  not  only  equally  interested  in  the 
building  of  a  Cathedral,  but  were  willing  to  take  the 
initiative  in  the  movement.  The  first  memorable  meet- 
ing was  held  at  the  residence  of  Mr.  Glover,  and  most  of 
those  who  are  now  trustees  of  the  Cathedral  Board 
were  present.  Bishop  Paret  presided  and  made  the 
opening  address  ;  there  was  a  full  discussion,  and  the 
plan  was  carefully  outlined.  After  this,  further  steps 
were  taken,  proposed  forms  of  procedure  were  adopted 
and  submitted  to  the  Bishop  of  Maryland  for  his 
approval  and  revision ;  and  the  whole  subject  of  a 
Cathedral  Foundation  was  most  carefully  considered 
before  the  final  steps  were  taken. 

On  January  6, 1893,  a  Protestant  Episcopal  Cathedral 
Foundation  was  created  by  Act  of  Congress,  and  it  may 
be  an  inspiring  memory,  for  all  future  time,  that  the 
charter  of  the  Cathedral  of  SS.  Peter  and  Paul  was  thus 
granted,  and  this  great  Mission  Church  for  all  people 
founded,  on  the  ancient  Feast  Day  of  the  Epiphany  ; 
that  great  missionary  anniversary  of  the  Church 
which  commemorates  the  manifestation  of  Christ  to 
the  Gentiles. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Douglas,  with  the  valuable  cooperation 
of  Senator  Edmunds  of  Vermont,  after  painstaking  and 
diligent  labors,  which  should  never  be  forgotten,  drew 


Rev.  George  William  Douglas,  D.  D. 

First  Dean  of  the  Cathedral 


Gen.  John  G.  Parke,  U.  S.  A. 

First  Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Cathedral  Trusteed 


Alexander  T.  Britton,  Esq. 

Trustee  of  the  Cathedral  Foundation 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CATHEDRAL.  25 

up  the  "  Constitution  and  Statutes  "  of  the  Cathedral 
Foundation.  A  Board  of  Trustees  was  elected  :  Dr. 
Douglas  was  chosen  Dean  and  Chancellor  of  the  Cathe- 
dral. In  addition  to  the  property  so  generously  offered 
by  Miss  Maun  to  the  Cathedral  Foundation,  others 
promised  to  remember  it  in  bequests,  and  the  work 
was  prosecuted  so  energetically  and  enthusiastically 
that  public  interest  was  soon  aroused. 

The  next  question  that  came  up  was  that  of  a  suit- 
able site  for  the  Cathedral.  While  Mount  Saint  Alban 
was  not  only  the  most  beautiful  and  majestic  situation 
in  the  whole  District  of  Columbia  for  the  coming 
Cathedral,  and  in  that  northwestern  direction,  where, 
in  the  judgement  of  all,  the  growth  of  the  future  city 
would  be  most  rapid,  there  were  no  funds  on  hand 
wherewith  to  purchase  this  valuable  and  unique  site. 
An  offer  of  the  Chevy  Chase  Land  Company,  therefore, 
to  donate  several  acres  of  land  in  the  same  neighbor- 
hood— providing  buildings  costing  $500,000,  within 
the  next  ten  years,  were  erected — was  gratefully 
accepted,  and  about  the  same  time  Mrs.  Hearst 
generously  volunteered  to  erect  a  school  building  for 
the  education  of  girls. 


26  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 


CHAPTER   II. 

The  Cathedral    Foundation  of  SS.  Peter  and 

Paul. 

In  the  meantime,  the  old  idea  that  the  Diocese  of 
Maryland  should  be  divided,  and  that  Washington 
should  be  made  the  See  City  of  a  new  Diocese,  had 
been  rapidly  gaining  ground.  Bishop  Paret  himself 
proposed  and  strongly  advocated  the  measure  in  the 
Diocesan  Convention.  This  started  the  movement, 
and  the  Rev.  Dr.  Randolph  H.  McKim  of  Epiphany 
Church,  Washington,  not  only  became  one  of  the 
recognized  leaders  in  its  behalf,  but,  through  his  own 
personal  exertions,  raised  the  amount  necessary  for  the 
endowment  of  a  Diocese  of  Washington.  But  a  similar 
amount  had  to  be  raised  for  the  old  Diocese,  and  the 
movement  would  have  come  to  a  standstill  had  it  not 
been  for  a  most  unexpected  event,  bringing  help 
in  a  way  which  cannot  but  be  looked  upon  as  provi- 
dential. The  helping  hand  was  stretched  out  from  the 
mother  Diocese  of  Maryland.  A  meeting  had  been 
called  for  a  certain  day,  not  only  to  consider  what 
progress  had  been  made,  but,  also,  to  report  that  the 
efforts  already  put  forth  had  failed  to  secure  the  sum 
adequate  for  the  endowment  of  the  old  Diocese.  At  this 
meeting  the  Bishop  of  Maryland  appeared  and  stated 
that  that  very  morning  he  had  been  officially  notified 
regarding  a  large  legacy  just  left  by  a  deceased  citizen 


Arms  of  the  Diocese  of  Washington 


The  motto  beneath  the  shield  is  the  Anglican 
Basis  for  Church  Unity  set  forth  first  at  Chicago 
and  afterwards  at  I«amneth 


THE  CATHEDRAL  OE  SS.  PETER  AND  PAUL.  27 

of  Baltimore  to  the  whole  Diocese  of  Maryland ;  and 
that,  though  a  third  of  this  belonged  to  the  projected 
Diocese,  the  remainder  was  sufficient  to  complete  the 
endowment  fund. 

The  Diocese  of  Washington  was  created  by  the  Gen- 
eral Convention  which  met  at  Minneapolis  shortly 
afterwards.*     Before  the  ending  of  that  same  year, 

*The  Diocese  of  Washington  comprises  the  District  of  Columbia 
and  the  following  four  Counties  of  the  State  of  Maryland :  Mont- 
gomery, Prince  George's,  Charles  and  St.  Mary's.  It  is  about  one 
hundred  and  thirty  miles  long  by  about  twenty  or  twenty-five 
wide.  At  the  time  of  the  division  it  contained  about  92  clergy, 
49  parishes,  and  30  mission  chapels,  about  equally  divided  between 
city  and  country.  Many  of  these  parishes  are  over  two  hundred 
years  old,  as  can  be  seen  by  such  old  historic  names,  as  "  William 
and  Mary,"  ''  Prince  George,"  "  Queen  Ann,"  "  Kings  and  Queens," 
"  King  George's  "  Parishes,  etc. 

It  may  also  be  of  interest  to  note  here  that  the  Seal  of  the  Diocese 
of  Washington,  while  it  bears  a  resemblance  to  the  Arms  of  the 
Country,  is  also  full  of  religious  and  symbolic  meaning.  The  Arms  of 
the  Diocese  consist  of  a  Shield  impaled :  On  the  dexter  side, 
Jerusalem  Cross  (or)  in  an  azure  field :  On  the  sinister  side,  Arms 
of  George  Washington,  viz,  three  mullets  ( gules )  in  chief  with  two 
bars  (gules)  on  a  field  (argent);  a  Mural  Crown  (argent)  is  blazoned 
on  the  upper  bar,  as  the  heraldic  emblem  of  a  city. 

Symbolically,  the  Arms  represent  that  great  principle  of  the 
Incarnation — the  union  of  the  spiritual  and  the  natural.  The 
Jerusalem  Cross,  on  the  right  or  spiritual  side  of  the  Shield,  signi- 
fies that  our  Church  traces  her  lineage  back,  not  to  England  or 
Rome,  but  to  that  Holy  City  where  Christ  was  crucified  and  rose 
again  from  the  dead.  It  is  traditionally  said  that  these  five  crosses 
represent  the  five  wounds  of  Christ  crucified,  though  other  explana- 
tions of  the  Jerusalem  Cross  have  also  been  given.  The  left,  or 
secular  side  of  the  Shield,  appropriately  contains  the  Arms  of 
Washington,  not  only  because  the  capital  of  the  country  is  named 
from  him,  but  for  a  deeper  reason.  The  only  connection  between 
Church  and  State  that  ever  is,  or  should  be,  recognized  in  our 
free  country  is  in  each  individual  man,  who  is,  at  one  and  the 
same  time,  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  and  a  citizen  of  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  our  Church  shall  ever 
stand  true  as  a  witness  for  this  principle.  She  could  have  no 
higher  inspiration  in  so  doing  than  the  life  and  example  of  that 
revered  and  illustrious  churchman  whose  Arms  are  blazoned  on 
her  Shield  and  who  is  known  to  all  as  "  the  Father  of  His  Country." 

There  are  other  interesting  symbolic  meanings  in  the  Arms  of 
the  Diocese  but  these  will  suffice  to  show  why  they  were  adopted. 


28  The  building  of  a  cathedra!. 

1895,  the  present  Bishop  was  elected,  and  one  of  the 
first  burdens  laid  upon  him  was  the  building  up  of 
that  Protestant  Episcopal  Cathedral  Foundation  in  the 
capital  of  the  country,  the  plans  and  projects  of  which 
had  been  shaping  themselves  more  and  more  definitely 
for  so  many  years. 

It  was  now  found  that  the  site  donated  by  the  Chevy 
Chase  Laud  Company — even  with  the  addition  of 
adjoining  lots,  which  had  been  acquired  by  purchase — 
was  entirely  inadequate  for  a  Cathedral  Foundation 
which  was  to  stand  and  grow  through  all  coming  time. 
Shortly  afterwards,  it  was  discovered  that  the  Mount 
Saint  Alban  property  could  probably  be  obtained  ;  but, 
alas  !  there  were  no  funds  in  hand  wherewith  to  pur- 
chase it,  for  the  properxy  originally  given  by  Miss 
Mann,  but  not  yet  transferred,  was  so  incumbered  by 
mortgage  and  taxes  that,  at  her  own  request,  the 
trust  was  cancelled. 

These  were  the  darkest  of  all  the  days  of  the  Cathe- 
dral Foundation.  For  a  year  the  Board  of  Trustees 
had  to  carry  a  very  heavy  burden  and  face  a  despair- 
ing outlook.  They  had,  on  the  one  hand,  to  bear  the 
responsibility  of  planting  a  Cathedral  Foundation 
which  would  represent  the  life  and  work  of  the  Episco- 
pal Church  in  the  capital  of  the  country ;  and,  on 
the  other,  to  do  this,  without  substantial  aid  or 
support  from  the  Church  at  large.  Every  intelligent 
churchman  felt  the  need  and  importance  of  the  Cathe- 
dral of  Washington  ;  yet  no  one  proffered  the  material 
and  financial  help  necessary  to  carry  the  project  into 
effect. 


THE  CATHEDRAL  OF  SS.  PETER  AND  PAUL.     29 

It  was  at  this  juncture  that  Senator  Edmunds  of 
Vermont  wrote  the  following  letter  to  the  Bishop  of 
Washington  : 

1724.  Spruce  Street, 
Philadelphia,  January  25th,  1898. 
My  Dear  Bishop  : 

I  was  very  glad  to  be  present  at  the  meeting  of  the 
Cathedral  Board  at  your  house  the  other  day,  and  to 
hear  your  clear  statement  of  the  situation. 

If  our  brother  Churchmen  in  every  part  of  the  coun- 
try— especially  those  blessed  with  abundant  means — 
could  only  realise  the  state  of  things,  as  you  and  I  see 
it  and  know  it,  there  would  be,  I  am  sure,  no  want  of 
the  material  resources  necessary  to  carry  on  the  work 
with  all  the  rapidity  of  which  it  is  capable. 

The  Capital  of  this  great  Nation  is  necessarily  the 
pivotal  point  of  national  religious,  as  well  as  political, 
progress  on  the  continent. 

The  astute  and  far-seeing  authorities  of  Rome  have 
seen  it,  and  have  established  their  headquarters  at 
Washington,  with  a  delegated  authority  that  locates  an 
almost  dual  Vatican  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and 
thence  conducts  its  propaganda  in  every  part  of  the 
country,  and  exerts  its  powerful  influence  in  every 
direction. 

Our  Church,  the  real  lineal  and  historical  descendant 
and  successor  of  the  primitive  Apostolic  Church,  seems 
to  fail  to  see  our  duty  and  our  opportunity  to  establish 
our  Protestant  National  Cathedral  Foundation  in  the 
same  central  sphere  of  influence,  with  the  worship,  the 
schools,  the  theological  seminaries  and  the  missionary 
work  that  are  included  in  the  idea  and  charter  of  our 
Cathedral  Foundation. 

I  do  most  earnestly  hope  that  our  brethren  every- 
where may  be  led  to  understand  the  very  great  imports 


30  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

ance  of  the  work   at   Washington,  and   help  to   the 
utmost  of  their  abilities  to  carry  it  on. 

Yesterday  has  gone ;  to-morrow  is  always  to-morrow  ; 
to-day  is  the  time  for  action. 

Very  faithfully  yours, 

Geo.  F.  Edmunds. 

After  prolonged  and  careful  consideration  the  Cathe- 
dral Board  determined  to  sell  the  old  site  and  to  buy 
the  Mount  Saint  Alban  property,  if  funds  could  be 
raised  sufficient  for  the  purchase.  The  emergency  was 
great,  the  need  of  prompt  action  was  urgent,  the 
opportunity  was  fleeting  and  would  soon  have  passed 
away,  had  not  generous  friends  of  the  Cathedral 
now  come  forward  to  proffer  assistance.  Twenty-five 
thousand  dollars  were  offered  by  Mrs.  Percy  R.  Pyne, 
of  New  York,  and  $15,000  by  Miss  Bessie  J.  Kibbey,  of 
Washington.  These  were  the  first  and  largest  contrib- 
utors toward  the  purchase  of  the  Cathedral  land. 
The  next  was  Miss  M.  W.  Bruce,  of  New  York  ;  then 
others,  among  whom  were  Mr.  J.  Pierpont  Morgan, 
Messrs.  Cornelius  and  William  K.  Vanderbilt,  Mrs. 
Thomas  Nelson  Page,  Mrs.  Woerishoffer,  and  Mr.  R. 
Fulton  Cutting,  swelled  the  amount  to  a  sufficient  sum 
to  secure  this  property,  leaving  a  large  mortgage  ;  and, 
on  September  7,  1898,  it  became  the  possession  of  the 
Cathedral  Board. 

Since  that  time,  with  the  active  and  energetic 
cooperation  of  Mr.  Charles  C.  Glover,  President  of  the 
Riggs  National  Bank,  one  of  the  first  members  of  the 
Board  of  Trustees,  and  with  the  help  of  the  Cathedral 
Committees  in  Philadelphia,  New  York,  Boston,  New- 


n 


THE  CATHEDRAL  OF  SS.  PETER  AND  PAUL.     31 

port  and  Washington,  the  Bishop  has  been  able  to  raise 
sufficient  funds,  not  only  to  pay  the  interest  on  the 
mortgage,  and  taxes  from  that  day  to  this,  but  also 
largely  to  reduce  the  mortgage  itself.  General  Parke, 
Colonel  Truesdell,  Rev.  Dr.  Mackay-Smith,  Messrs. 
Kasson,  Hyde,  Bell,  Stevens,  Boardman  and  Lowndes, 
and  other  Washingtonians  generously  assisted  in  this 
effort. 

In  October,  1898 — about  a  month  after  the  Cathedral 
land  was  bought — the  General  Convention  met  in 
Washington,  and  on  the  Sunday  before  its  adjourn- 
ment, in  the  presence  of  the  late  President  of  the  United 
States  and  the  members  of  both  Houses  of  the  Conven- 
tion, a  Peace  Cross,  given  by  a  Churchman  of  New 
York,  was  unveiled,  which  commemorates  the  ending 
of  the  war  between  Spain  and  the  United  States.* 

At  this,  the  first  service  of  the  Cathedral  of  SS.  Peter 
and  Paul,  our  martyred  President,  William  McKinley, 
said  : 

"  I  appreciate  the  very  great  privilege,  extended  to 
me  through  its  bishops  and  laymen,  of  participating 
with  this  ancient  Church,  in  this  new  sowing  for  the 
Master  and  for  man.  Every  undertaking  like  this,  for 
the  promotion  of  religion,  morality  and  education  is 
a  distinct  and  positive  gain  to  citizenship,  to  morality 
and  to  civilization. 

For  this  sacred  enterprise,  through  you,  its  originators 
and  promoters,  1  wish  the  highest  influence  and  the 
widest  usefulness,  both  in  the  immediate  present  and 
in  all  the  years  to  come." 

*  In  the  accompanying  picture  of  the  Peace  Cross  Service,  the 
central  figure  is  that  of  President  McKinley ;  at  his  right  are 
Bishop  Satterlee,  Bishop  Dudley  and  Dr.  Dix ;  on  his  left  are 
Bishop  Doane,  Bishop  Whipple  and  Bishop  McLaren. 


32  THE  BUILDING  OP  A  CATHEDRAL. 

This  brief  address  of  Mr.  McKinley,  so  descrip- 
tive of  the  work  of  the  Cathedral,  adapted  itself,  with 
a  few  verbal  alterations,  to  liturgical  form  ;  and  it  has 
been  used  ever  since,  after  the  manner  of  an  opening 
exhortation,  at  every  laying  of  a  corner-stone,  opening 
of  a  new  building,  or  similar  service,  on  the  Cathedral 
Close. 

On  the  next  day,  at  the  meeting  of  the  General 
Convention,  on  motion  of  the  Bishops  of  Delaware 
and  New  York,  the  following  resolution  was  passed : 

By  the  House  of  Bishops. 

Resolved,  That  the  members  of  this  House  express 
to  the  Bishop  of  Washington  their  earnest  congratula- 
tions upon  the  happy  inauguration  of  his  Cathedral 
project,  and  their  hearty  prayers  for  God's  continued 
and  abundant  blessings  upon  this  part  of  his  impor- 
tant work." 

On  the  same  day  the  House  of  Clerical  and  Lay 
Deputies  took  corresponding  action  and,  on  motion  of 
the  Rev.  Dr.  H.  W.  Nelson,  passed  the  following  reso- 
lution : 

By  the  House  of  Deputies. 

Resolved,  That  this  House,  mindful  of  yesterday's 
noble  and  most  impressive  service  of  the  unveiling  of 
the  Cross  of  Peace  on  the  Cathedral  grounds  of  Saint 
Peter  and  Saint  Paul,  gives  joy  to  the  Bishop  of  Wash- 
ington for  this  formal  and  felicitous  beginning  of  his 
great  Cathedral  work,  in  the  success  of  which  the 
whole  Church  will  share,  and  in  the  doing  of  which 
the  whole  Church  might  well  assist,  and  renders  thanks 
to  God  that  through  the  influence  of  the  Christian 
faith,  the  old  war  cross,  always  a  sign  of  war  ancl  desor 


1    : 

0  /■■■: 

Eflr 

; 

__ 

Bishop  Claggett's  Tombstone 

(From  The  Peace  Cross  Book,  Copyrighted  1899,  by  Robert  Howard  Russell) 


THE  CATHEDRAL  OF  SS.  PETER  AND  PAUL.     33 

lation,  is  being  more  and  more  supplanted  by  Christ's 
blessed  cross  of  peace. 

Resolved,  That  this  House  recognizes  with  pleasure 
the  presence  of  the  President  of  the  United  States  at 
the  ceremonies  of  the  unveiling  of  the  cross,  and  thanks 
him  for  the  kindly  and  generous  words  he  uttered. 

Before  the  closing  of  that  same  General  Convention 
the  House  of  Bishops,  on  a  motion  of  the  Bishop  of 
Kentucky,  which  was  seconded  by  the  Bishop  of  Los 
Angeles,  passed  the  following  memorable  resolution  : 

Whereas,  It  has  been  represented  to  some  of  the 
Bishops  attending  this  session  of  the  General  Conven- 
tion, that  the  grave  of  the  first  Bishop  of  Maryland, 
the  Rt.  Rev.  Thomas  John  Claggett,  is  not  guarded  by 
a  monument  appropriate  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of 
a  man  who  bore  such  relation  to  the  very  beginnings 
of  our  Ecclesiastical  life ;  and 

Whereas,  There  is  eminent  propriety  that  his 
remains  should  rest  near  the  precincts  of  the  Cathedral 
of  SS.  Peter  and  Paul  in  this  city  ;  therefore, 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  five  bishops*  shall  be 
appointed  by  this  House  to  whom  shall  be  entrusted 
the  work  of  raising  a  sufficient  fund  to  provide  for  the 
removal  and  reinterment  of  the  remains  at  such  place 
as  may  be  agreed  upon  in  consultation  with  the  Bishop 
of  Washington,  and  the  erection  of  a  monument  fitting 
to  mark  the  grave  of  this  Father  of  our  Church,  the 
first  Bishop  consecrated  on  the  American  continent. 

The  Right  Rev.  Dr.  Claggett,  the  first  Bishop  of 
Maryland,  will  ever  stand  forth  as  an  historic  charac- 
ter in  the  annals  of  our  American  Church,   not  only 

*  The  committee  appointed  were  the  Bishop  of  WeBt  Virginia, 
the  Bishop  of  Kentucky,  the  Bishop  of  Maryland,  the  Bishop  of 
Massachusetts,  and  the  Bishop  of  Washington. 


34  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

from  the  fact  that  he  was  the  first  Bishop  of  any 
branch  of  the  One,  Holy,  Catholic  and  Apostolic 
Church  ever  consecrated  in  America,  but  also  because 
he  was  the  only  Bishop  of  our  own  Church  in  whom 
the  Scotch  succession  secured  by  Bishop  Seabury  was 
continued  and  handed  down  to  those  Bishops  who 
came  afterward. 

In  addition  to  this,  Bishop  Claggett  was  the  first 
Chaplain  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  after  the 
Government  removed  to  Washington,  and  when  he 
died  in  1816,  Francis  Scott  Key,  the  author  of  "The 
Star  Spangled  Banner,"  wrote  the  epitaph  engraved 
upon  his  tombstone. 

In  accordance  with  the  resolution  of  the  House  of 
Bishops,  and  with  the  consent  of  the  family  of  the 
deceased  prelate,  the  remains  of  Bishop  Claggett  and 
his  wife  were  translated  from  the  graveyard  at  Croom, 
and,  on  All  Saints'  Day,  1898,  in  the  presence  not  only 
of  the  Bishop  and  many  of  the  clergy  of  the  Diocese 
of  Washington,  but  also  of  a  large  number  of  Dr. 
Claggett's  lineal  descendants,  the  two  coffins  were  rev- 
erently laid  in  a  vault  specially  built  to  receive  them 
beneath  the  chancel  of  St.  Alban's  Church,  where 
they  will  repose  until  the  canopied  tomb  decreed  by 
the  resolution  of  the  House  of  Bishops  is  erected  in  the 
future  Cathedral  itself.* 

Events  now  began  to  move  more  rapidly.  Mrs. 
Phcebe  A.  Hearst  generously  increased  the  amount 

*  For  a  more  detailed  account  of  all  these  events,  the  reader  is 
referred  to  "  The  Peace  Cross  Book."  Among  the  pages  of  this 
little  book  will  be  found  a  vivid  description  of  the  memorable 
Peace  Cross  Service  itself  from  the  pen  of  the  distinguished  author, 
Mr.  Thomas  Nelson  Page. 


Mrs.  Phoebe  A.  Hearst 


THE  CATHEDKAL  OF  SS.  PETER  AND  PAUL.     35 

she  had   donated  from  $175,000   to  $200,000,  and 
founded  the  Cathedral  School  for  Girls. 

Competitive  designs  from  prominent  architects  were 
presented.  That  of  Mr.  R.  W.  Gibson,  of  New  York, 
was  unanimously  selected  by  the  Board  of  Trustees  and 
approved  by  Mrs.  Hearst  herself.  Few,  if  any  church 
boards,  have  among  its  members  such  a  skilled  build- 
ing committee  as  the  Cathedral  of  Washington  possessed 
in  General  John  M.Wilson,  Chief  of  Engineers,  U.  S.  A. ; 
the  Hon.  George  Truesdell,  Commissioner  of  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia,  and  Mr.  Alexander  T.  Britton. 
Under  the  supervision  of  these,  the  beautiful  and 
stately  Cathedral  School  for  Girls  (the  gift  of  Mrs. 
Hearst)  was  erected  at  the  northwest  corner  of  the 
Cathedral  Close.*  Through  the  thoughtful  liber- 
ality of  Miss  Matilda  W.  Bruce,  of  New  York,  who 
contributed  $20,000  for  the  purpose,  it  was  equipped 
and  furnished.  On  October  1,  1900,  it  was  opened 
with  Miss  L.  A.  Bangs  and  Miss  Mary  B.  Whiton,  as 
principals.  And,  already,  under  their  successful  leader- 
ship and  administration  it  has  achieved  for  itself  a 
place  among  the  foremost  educational  institutions  for 
girls  in  the  United  States. 

The  large  assembly  room  of  this  school  has  been 
named  "  St.  Hilda's  Hall,"  after  the  celebrated  woman, 
whose  life  and  literary  efforts  were  such  an  inspiration, 
so  many  centuries  ago,  to  English  scholarship,  and  Sir 
Charles  Strickland  has  kindly  sent  the  keystone  of  an 
ancient  arch,  to  be  called  the  "  Hilda  stone,"  from  the 

*  Mr.  Adolph  Cluss  was  the  Supervising  Architect  during  its 
construction  and  not  a  little  is  due  to  his  able  and  conscientious 
cooperation. 


36  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

ruins  of  St.  Hilda's  Abbey,  at  Whitby,  that  "  cradle  of 
all  English  literature,"  and  placed  in  St.  Hilda's  Hall. 

A  gift  of  even  greater  historic  interest  has  come 
across  the  ocean  to  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Peter  and  St. 
Paul  from  the  mother  church  of  England,  and  it 
came  in  this  way  : 

The  last  great  service  of  the  Lambeth  Conference 
of  1897  took  place  in  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  Abbey 
church  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  at  Glastonbury.  It 
was  a  scene  which  none  who  were  present  can  ever 
forget,  not  only  on  account  of  its  rural  beauty,  but  of 
the  associations  reaching  back  to  the  days  when  Chris- 
tianity was  first  established  in  ancient  Britain — and, 
perhaps,  as  tradition  has  it,  to  those  of  Joseph  of 
Arimathea  himself.  Whether  this  tradition,  and  those 
which  cluster  around  King  Arthur  and  his  court  are 
true  or  not,  Glastonbury  was  the  ancient  Avallon ;  and 
an  old  Saxon  church  stood  here  long  before  the  reign 
of  William  the  Conqueror.  In  after  times  the  Abbey 
was  rebuilt,  again  and  again,  and  the  old  stones  were 
incorporated  in  each  new  structure,  until  the  last  one 
was  erected,  about  the  times  of  Richard  Coeur  de  Leon 
and  the  wars  of  the  Crusades. 

It  was  at  this  Lambeth  Conference  Service  that  the 
Bishop  of  Washington  for  the  first  time  met  Mr.  Stan- 
ley Austin,  the  owner  of  Glastonbury  Abbey.  Since 
that  day,  Mr.  Austin  and  the  people  of  Glastonbury 
have  taken  deep  interest  in  the  Washington  Cathe- 
dral ;  and  in  the  year  1900,  twenty  carved  stones  of 
the  old  Abbey  church  of  SS.  Peter  and  Paul  were 
sent,  as  a  gift  "from  the  churchmen  of  Glastonbury  to 


THE  CATHEDRAL  OF  SS.  PETER  AND  PAUL.     37 

the  churchmen  of  America"  for  the  Cathedral  church 
of  SS.  Peter  and  Paul  in  the  capital  of  the  United 
States ;  to  be  shaped  into  a  bishop's  chair,  which  was 
named  by  a  well-known  historian  (the  Rt.  Rev'd  Dr. 
G.  F.  Browne,  Lord  Bishop  of  Bristol)  "  the  Glaston- 
bury Cathedra."  This  ancient  and  historic  monument 
will  stand  for  all  coming  time  as  a  witness  of  the  con- 
tinuity in  America,  of  that  Apostolic  ministry  which 
England  derived  from  the  Apostolic  church  herself. 
Through  the  generous  cooperation  of  a  public-spirited 
American,  who  is  deeply  interested  in  the  Cathedral 
of  Washington,  this  Cathedra  has  now  been  com- 
pleted. It  is  to  be  seen  to-day  erected  on  the  site 
of  the  future  Cathedral,  and  in  addition  to  these 
other  associations,  upon  which  we  have  been  dwelling, 
there  is  one  more  which  adds  to  it  no  little  interest  in 
American  eyes.  Though  no  one  can  tell  how  ancient 
these  stones  may  be ;  though  some  of  them,  if  they 
could  cry  out,  might  tell  of  scenes  which  occurred 
even  in  Apostolic  days,  one  thing  is  certain  :  they  all 
reach  back  to  the  times  of  the  Magna  Charta ;  and  from 
the  walls  of  God's  House  of  Prayer  they  must  have 
echoed  back  the  voices  of  some  of  those  great  religious 
leaders  who  signed  that  charter  of  all  English  liberties 
which  proclaimed  that  the  Church  of  God  in  England 
must  henceforth  be  free  forever. 

The  next  offering  to  the  Cathedral  in  the  capital 
of  the  United  States  was  from  a  different  quarter.  It  was 
not  from  the  Church  of  England,  but  has  been  given 
from  the  dioceses  and  missionary  jurisdictions  of  our 
own  Church  in  America.  On  June  29,  1901 — the 
ancient  S.   Peter  and   S.   Paul's   Day   of  the  early 


38  THE  BUILDING  OP  A  CATHEDRAL. 

Church — by  a  happy  coincidence,  there  arrived  twelve 
large  blocks  of  marble,  taken  from  those  very  "  quarries 
of  Solomon"  at  Jerusalem  from  which  the  stones  of 
Solomon's  Temple  were  hewn. *  Interesting,  however,  as 
such  associations  are,  they  are  eclipsed  by  another  which 
is  far  more  sacred.  These  mizzi  helu  stones,  as  they 
are  called  in  Palestine,  were  taken  from  that  sacred 
locality  "  without  the  gate  "  or  second  wall  of  Jerusa- 
lem, and  u nigh  unto  the  city''  where  a  skull-shaped 
hill  is  to  be  seen  to-day,  which  is  now  generally 
believed  to  be  "  the  place  called  Calvary."  Those  who 
stood  over  the  place,  whence  these  stones  were  hewn, 
could  have  viewed  the  procession  toward  Calvary,  heard 
the  cries,  "  Crucify  Him,  Crucify  Him"  and,  without 
doubt,  (had  there  been  no  intervening  obstacle)  could 
have  witnessed  the  crucifixion,  burial  and  resurrection 
of  Christ.  In  coming  time,  no  memory  amongst  the 
many  of  the  beginnings  of  the  Washington  Cathedral 
will  be  more  hallowed  than  the  remembrance  that  the 
first  stone  of  the  Cathedral  was  this  Jerusalem  altar, 
hewn  from  the  sacred  quarry,  and  given  by  the 
different  dioceses  of  our  own  Church. 

The  altar  itself  is  four  square  in  shape,  with  no  other 
ornamentation  than  those  simple  Bible  verses  which 
record  the  crucifixion,  entombment,  resurrection  and 
ascension  of  our  blessed  Lord ;  the  incised  letters  of 
which,  catch  and  reflect  the  lights  and  shadows,  and 
seem,  at  a  distance,  like  fretwork  tracery.     It  is  inter- 

*  The  first  suggestion  regarding  these  altar  stones  came  from  Mr. 
Herbert  E.  Clark,  when  the  Bishop  of  Washington  met  him  in 
Paris,  in  the  summer  of  1900.  It  was  only  through  Mr.  Clark's 
unwearied  and  persevering  cooperation  that  the  plan  was  finally 
achieved.  The  two  photographic  views  of  these  stones  were 
kindly  taken  by  Dr.  Selah  Merrill,  U.  S.  Consul  at  Jerusalem. 


THE  CATHEDRAL  OP  SS.  PETER  AND  PAUL.     39 

esting  to  note  in  the  Old  Testament,  how  the  idea  of 
worship,  as  symbolized  by  the  altars  of  Abraham,  Isaac 
and  Jacob,  preceded  that  of  the  House  of  Prayer  itself, 
and  how  the  altar  of  the  Temple  was  erected  before 
the  Temple  itself  was  built.  In  the  history  of  the 
Cathedral  of  Washington,  the  same  kind  of  religious 
continuity  has  been  preserved. 

But  while  the  central  act  of  all  Christian  worship  is 
the  Lord's  Supper,  there  are  other  forms  of  divine 
worship  needful,  especially  for  those  who  are  not  com- 
municants of  the  Church,  nay,  who  oftentimes  are  very 
far  from  being  even  ordinary  church-goers  ;  and  during 
the  summer  of  1901,  open-air  mission  services  on  the 
Cathedral  grounds  have  been  held  on  Sunday  after- 
noons. An  amphitheatre-like  formation  on  the  very 
site  of  the  future  Cathedral  readily  adapted  itself  to 
such  services.  A  rustic  open-air  chancel  and  pulpit 
were  erected  beneath  the  trees  for  the  "  People's  Even- 
song." White  robed  choirs  sang  simple  familiar 
chants  and  hymns,  led  by  a  musical  band,  and  plain 
gospel  sermons  were  preached  to  the  crowds  who 
gathered  beneath  the  shade  trees  or  reclined  on  the 
hillsides,  sometimes  to  the  number  of  two  thousand. 
The  whole  scene  in  effect  was  a  vivid  reminder  of  New 
Testament  times  ;  and  thus  a  Cathedral  congregation, 
chiefly  of  non-church-goers,  has  been  gathered  before 
the  Cathedral  itself  is  built. 

Meanwhile  the  little  neighboring  church  of  St. 
Alban  has  been  enlarged  to  double  its  former  capacity 
to  accommodate  the  ever-growing  number  of  persons 
who  attend  it,  one  hundred  of  whom  come  from  the 
Cathedral  School  itself. 


40  THE  BUILDING  OP  A  CATHEDRAL. 

And  now,  in  this  winter  of  1901-1902,  a  "  Little 
Sanctuary  "  is  being  erected,  at  the  All  Hallows  gate  of 
the  future  Cathedral,  facing  Massachusetts  avenue  on 
the  south.  The  building  of  this  little  chapel  on  the 
Cathedral  site,  where  Communion  Services  and  Quiet 
Hours  may  be  held,  has  been  rendered  possible  by  the 
children  of  the  late  Mrs.  Percy  R.  Pyne,  in  remem- 
brance of  her  interest  in  the  Cathedral  of  Washington. 
In  this  Little  Sanctuary  will  be  placed  the  Glastonbury 
Cathedra  and  also  the  Jerusalem  Altar,  there  to  repose 
until  the  great  Cathedral  is  built. 

Thus,  in  addition  to  the  open-air  mission  services 
there  will  be  also  the  Cathedral  Eucharists  at  the 
Cathedral  altar,  and  a  celebration  on  the  Lord's  Day 
of  the  Lord's  Supper,  the  one  service  of  public  worship 
which  the  Lord  Himself  ordained. 

At  the  southeast  corner  of  the  Little  Sanctuary  the 
observer  may  behold  "  the  Glastonbury  thorn,"  the 
gift  of  Mr.  Stanley  Austin,  and  an  offshoot  from  the 
celebrated  thorn  tree  with  which  so  many  legends  are 
connected. 

It  is  hoped  that,  at  an  early  day,  an  ice-water 
fountain  may  be  erected  in  the  vicinity  of  All  Hallows 
gate,  for  the  use  of  the  congregations  which  come  to 
the  Open  Air  Services  on  Sunday  afternoons  in  the 
warm  summer  time.  And  it  may  be  of  interest  to 
state  here  that  much  of  the  carved  stone  work  of  this 
proposed  fountain,  as  well  as  the  pillars,  window 
mullions  and  corbels  of  the  Little  Sanctuary,  once 
formed  a  part  of  the  beautiful  Academy  of  Design, 
which  for  fifty  years  stood  on  Twenty-third  street  in 
New  York. 


Wmsmmm  ■ 


THE  CATHEDRAL  CLOSE  AND  ITS  SITUATION.  41 

CHAPTER  III. 

The  Cathedral  Close  and  Its  Situation. 

It  has  often  been  objected  that  the  site  chosen  is  too 
far  from  the  crowded  city  for  a  Cathedral.  This  point 
was  carefully  considered.  The  position  of  the  principal 
European  cathedrals,  the  growth  of  American  cities, 
and  the  development  of  Washington  itself  (which  has 
increased  four  hundred  per  cent,  in  forty  years)  were 
all  borne  in  mind.  Most  cities  begin  in  the  valley, 
near  the  water  courses  ;  they  afterwards  climb  to  the 
surrounding  hills  and,  unless  there  are  grave  hindrances, 
their  development  is  generally  westward.  In  the  city 
of  Washington  there  are  special  reasons  for  such 
growth  towards  the  heights  on  the  west.  For  the  wide 
Anacostia  river  lies  on  the  east,  and  the  wider  Potomac 
on  the  south,  while  the  large  Rock  Creek  Park  and 
Soldiers  Home  occupy  hundreds  of  acres  on  the  north. 
This  fact  was  realised  many  years  ago  and  consequently, 
Massachusetts  avenue,  the  broad  thoroughfare  which 
runs  past  the  Capitol  to  the  northwest,  was  laid  out  as 
a  principal  street  of  the  city,  with  parklike  "  circles  " 
and  statues,  at  the  points  of  intersection  with  the  other 
great  avenues. 

At  the  place  where  it  crosses  the  deep  gulf  of  Rock 
Creek  there  has  been  erected  a  massive  stone  bridge  or 
viaduct  with  a  roadway  over  it,  half  again  as  wide  as 
any  avenue  in  the  city  of  New  York,  and  an  appro- 
priation has  recently  been  made  by  Congress  to  cover 


42  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

this  whole  street  with  asphalt  pavement,  at  least,  as 
far  as  Wisconsin  avenue.  It  is  at  the  crossing 
of  these  two  avenues  that  the  Cathedral  Close 
stands.  In  distance  it  is  about  as  far  from  the  Treas- 
ury Building,  as  Westminister  Abbey  is  from  the  Bank 
of  England  in  London,  or  as  Washington  Square  is 
from  Central  Park  gate  in  New  York,  and  it  is  only 
twenty  minutes'  drive  from  the  White  House — the  pres- 
ent centre  of  the  city  of  Washington.  Again,  while 
Massachusetts  avenue  is  destined  to  be  the  street 
whereon  the  residences  of  the  wealthy  are,  and  will  be, 
erected,  Wisconsin  or  Georgetown  avenue,  on  the 
contrary,  is  already  being  rapidly  built  up  with  houses 
which,  until  it  comes  to  the  neighborhood  of  the 
Cathedral  and  Cleveland  Park,  are  of  an  humbler 
class ;  and,  here  as  elsewhere,  electric  tram  car  lines 
are  a  new  force  in  modern  civilization  which  develop 
new  conditions  in  the  growth  of  large  cities.  Thus, 
as  it  were,  two  tides  of  population  are  trending 
toward  that  neighborhood  where  the  great  Cathe- 
dral will  one  day  stand  ;  and  such  is  its  import- 
ance in  the  estimation  of  the  present  residents  that 
they  have  formed  a  "  Cathedral  Heights  Association  " 
to  watch  and  care  for  the  improvements  in  that  part 
of  West  Washington.  Though  the  Cathedral  itself  will 
stand  on  a  plateau  nearly  four  hundred  feet  above  the 
Potomac  and  the  Washington  Monument,  the  ascent 
along  Massachusetts  avenue  is  so  gradual  (five  feet  in 
a  hundred)  that  no  one  realises  how  great  it  is,  until 
the  carriage  enters  the  Cathedral  grounds.  And  then, 
looking  through  the  massive  archway  of  All  Hallows 


Map  of  West  Washington 

(Showing  Electric  Street  Car  I.incs) 


THE  CATHEDRAL  CLOSE  AND  ITS  SITUATION.  43 

Gate,  the  wonderful  view  suddenly  bursts  upon  the 
gaze.  There  lies  the  whole  city  of  Washington  slum- 
bering in  the  sunshine  beneath,  like  Florence  from 
San  Miniato.  The  central  object  is  the  white  dome 
of  the  Capitol  rising  against  the  distant  blue  hills 
of  Maryland.  At  the  right  is  the  slender  shaft  of 
the  Washington  Monument,  and  behind,  like  a  broad 
silver  ribbon,  the  winding  Potomac  glistens  in  the  sun. 

The  Cathedral  Close,  at  present,  is  covered  with  oaks 
and  other  forest  trees.  Where  St.  John's  School  once 
was,  there  are  the  remains  of  a  garden  in  which  stands 
a  venerable  box  tree  planted  by  Thomas  Jefferson.  At 
the  northwest  corner,  near  Woodley  road,  is  the  Cathe- 
dral School  for  Girls,  a  stately  edifice  built  in  the 
Renaissance  style  by  Robert  W.  Gibson,  the  architect  of 
the  Cathedral  of  Albany  and  the  Church  Mission  House 
in  New  York. 

The  situation  of  this  School  demanded  careful  con- 
sideration. The  Cathedral  trustees  have  borne  in  mind 
that  they  have  been  put  in  charge  of  a  Foundation 
which  is  to  live  and  grow  for  centuries,  and  have  con- 
sequently been  obliged  to  take  a  long  look  ahead. 
This  northern  part  of  the  Cathedral  Close — over  a 
thousand  feet  square,  or  more  than  twice  as  large  as 
Madison  Square,  New  York — will  ultimately  be  covered 
by  a  series  of  "  Quads,"  like  those  of  Oxford 
or  Cambridge,  as  need  for  the  different  educa- 
tional, missionary  and  literary  buildings,  from  time 
to  time,  arise ;  and  the  Cathedral  School  for  Girls — 
which  has  been  erected  with  this  object  in  view — is  the 
first  of  these  buildings.     The  southern  portion  of  the 


44  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

Cathedral  Close  slopes  down  toward  the  city,  until,  at 
the  corner  of  Thirty-fifth  and  Galveston  streets,  it  is  one 
hundred  and  twenty  feet  b^low  the  level  of  the  Cathedral 
plateau.  On  the  Georgetown  side,  where  it  faces 
Massachusetts  avenue,  it  descends  also  in  a  series 
of  gentle  terraces.  Consequently,  this  was  the  spot 
selected  for  the  Cathedral  site  itself.  The  great 
cruciform  building  will  be  about  five  hundred  feet 
long,  and  (including  the  •  aisles)  one  hundred  feet 
wide.  It  will  face  the  east  at  that  point,  where 
the  sun  rises  on  April  9th,  the  day  that  Christ  rose 
from  the  dead.  The  ground  on  which  it  stands  is  so 
high  above  all  the  surrounding  country  that  no  build- 
ings can  possibly  obstruct  the  view  from  the  east.  As 
seen  from  the  esplanade  of  the  Capitol  and  the  whole 
of  the  present  city  of  Washington,  it  will  stand  out, 
with  its  three  majestic  towers,  crowning  the  summit  of 
the  hill  which  cuts  itself  against  the  horizon  of  the 
western  sky.  As  seen  from  Massachusetts  avenue  on 
the  south,  its  south  transept  and  buttressed  walls  will 
loom  up,  above  the  grassy  slopes  and  the  clumps  of 
trees  of  the  Cathedral  park.  While,  from  Wisconsin 
avenue,  its  whole  West  Facade  and  central  doorway 
will  rise  face  to  face  with  the  beholder  on  the  street. 
The  only  part  of  the  Cathedral  which  will  not,  there- 
fore, stand  out  conspicuously,  with  unobstructed  view, 
will  be  that  north  side,  where  the  cloisters  and 
u  Quads  "  of  collegiate  buildings  in  future  days  will  lie. 


Map  snowing  proposed  Cr»ata 


The  Cathedral  Close 

(Showing  proposed  grading  of  streets) 


THE  CATHEDRAL  ORGANISATION.         45 

CHAPTER  IV. 
The  Cathedral  Organisation. 

After  the  charter  of  the  Cathedral  was  granted 
by  Congress,  under  the  corporate  title  of  The 
Protestant  Episcopal  Cathedral  Foundation  in 
the  District  op  Columbia,  the  incorporators  elected 
the  following  Board  of  Trustees  :  The  Right  Rev. 
William  Paret,  D.  D.,  Bishop  of  Maryland,  President, 
ex  officio ;  Rev.  George  W.  Douglas,  D.  D.,  Rev.  R.  H. 
McKim,  D.  D.,  Rev.  J.  S.  B.  Hodges,  D.  D.,  Rev.  A. 
Mackay-Sraith,  D.  D.,  Hon.  George  F.  Edmunds,  Gen. 
John  G.  Parke,  Gen.  John  M.  Wilson,  Charles  C. 
Glover,  Esq.,  Hon.  George  Truesdell,  Hon.  John  A. 
Kasson,  A.  T.  Britton,  Esq.,  Henry  E.  Pellew,  Esq., 
James  Lowndes,  Esq.,  Theodore  W.  Noyes,  Esq. 

The  first  work  of  this  newly-elected  Board  was  to  frame 
the  laws  of  the  Cathedral.  Before  this  was  done,  however, 
the  whole  method  of  organisation  of  the  great  cathe- 
drals of  England  and  other  countries,  as  well  as  the  regu- 
lations of  American  cathedrals  were  carefully  studied 
and  compared,  and  on  December  5, 1894,  the  Constitu- 
tions and  Statutes  were  adopted.  In  these  it  was  pro- 
vided that  while  the  title  and  management  of  the  real 
estate  and  principal  funds  should  remain  with  the 
Board  of  Corporate  Trustees,  the  income  of  the  Founda- 
tion and  the  care  and  direction  of  the  institutions, 
buildings  and  organisations  should  be  under  two  chap- 


4G  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

ters,  called  respectively  the  Larger  Chapter  and  the 
Smaller  Chapter.  The  duties,  privileges  and  responsi- 
bilities of  each  of  these  chapters  are  specifically 
defined.* 

The  Larger  Chapter  consists  of  the  Bishop,  the  Dean 
and  other  members  of  the  Smaller  Chapter,  the 
Standing  Committee  of  the  Diocese  ex  officio,  the  Arch- 
deacons of  the  Diocese  ex  officio,  the  Treasurer  of  the 
Diocese  ex  officio,  the  Board  of  Trustees  ex  officio ;  the 
Honorary  Canons,  some  of  whom  are  clergymen  and 
others  laymen,  from  the  Diocese  of  Washington  and 
other  dioceses.  This  Larger  Chapter  serves  as  a  Senatw 
Episcopi  and  performs  other  duties.  The  Smaller 
Chapter  consists  of  the  Bishop,  the  Dean,  the  Canon 
Missioner,  the  Canon  Chancellor,  the  Canon  Precentor, 
and  two  other  Canons  who  are  to  be  chosen  by  the 
Standing  Committee  of  the  Diocese  with  the  advice 
and  consent  of  the  Bishop. 

Provision  is  made  for  the  gradual  formation  of  this 
organisation  as  occasion  calls  for  its  development.  At 
the  present  time  the  only  officers  of  the  Cathedral 
Foundation  are  the  following  : 

President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  the  Rt.  Rev.  Henry 
Y.  Satterlee,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.,  Bishop  of  Washington  ; 
members  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  the  Rev.  Randolph 
H.  McKim,  D.  D.,  the  Rev.  Alexander  Mackay-Smith, 
D.  D.,  the  Rev.  John  H.  Elliott,  D.  D.,  Mr.  Charles  C. 

*In  the  old  cathedrals  there  were  almost  always  a  school  for 
grammar,  a  school  for  theology,  a  school  for  music  and  a  school 
for  architecture.  Most  of  these  needs  are  now  met  by  other  insti- 
tutions of  learning.  The  schools  to  be  attached  to  the  future 
Cathedral  of  Washington  will  be  devoted  more  exclusively  to  such 
kinds  of  instruction  and  training  as  cannot  be  secured  elsewhere. 


n 


THE  CATHEDRAL  ORGANISATION.  4Y 

Glover,  Hon.  George  F.  Edmunds,  General  John  M. 
Wilson,  Q.  S.  A.,  Hon.  George  Truesdell,  Mr.  Henry 
E.  Pellew,  Hon.  John  A.  Kasson,  Mr.  James  Lowndes, 
Admiral  George  Dewey,  U.  S.  N.,  Mr.  Charles  J.  Bell, 
Mr.  Thomas  Hyde  and  Hon.  Wayne  MacVeagh.  The 
Canon  Missioner  is  the  Rev.  P.  M.  Rhinelander. 
The  Rev.  Richard  P.  Williams,  Archdeacon  of  Wash- 
ington ;  the  Rev.  Thomas  J.  Packard,  Arch  deacon  of 
Montgomery  and  Prince  George's,  and  the  Rev.  Chris- 
topher I.  LaRoche,  Archdeacon  of  Charles  and  St. 
Mary's,  with  the  Standing  Committee  of  the  Diocese, 
together  with  certain  other  Diocesan  Officers,  would 
be  ex  officio  members  of  the  Larger  Chapter  if  that 
Chapter  were  now  formed,  but  the  development  of 
the  Cathedral  Foundation  has  not  yet  required  the 
necessity  of  this  or  of  any  further  organisation  than 
that  which  has  been  stated. 

That  evangelistic  work,  however,  which,  by  and  by, 
will  be  the  special  sphere  of  effort  for  the  Cathedral,  is 
constantly  growing ;  and  in  the  conduct  of  this,  a  staff 
of  five  clergy,  one  deaconess  and  three  or  more  lay 
readers  are  assisting  the  Bishop  and  laboring  under 
his  Episcopal  supervision.  While,  in  one  aspect,  and 
speaking  accurately  of  present  conditions,  the  work 
which  these  are  doing  in  various  parts  of  the  city  of 
Washington  can  scarcely  be  described  as  Cathedral 
Mission  Work,  until  the  Cathedral  itself  is  built ;  yet, 
inasmuch  as  the  Bishop  himself  is  the  chief  missionary 
of  a  diocese,  and  as  the  Mission  Church  of  the  Bishop, 
where  the  Bishop's  seat  is  placed,  is  the  natural  centre 
from  which  all  such  evangelistic  efforts  should   flow, 


48  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

it  will  be  readily  seen,  that  all  this  is,  when  viewed 
from  another  aspect,  the  evangelistic  work  of  the 
Cathedral,  moving  on  under  the  Bishop,  in  advance 
of  the  Cathedral  building  itself;  and  this  is  in  accord- 
ance with  ancient  precedent.  For  centuries,  the  least 
part  of  the  work  of  a  cathedral  was  that  which  was 
connected  directly  with  the  cathedral  building  itself. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Devries  is  the  head  of  the  Pro-Cathe- 
dral work  at  St.  Mark's  Church,  which  (by  a  con- 
cordat between  the  Bishop  and  the  vestry)  is  the 
Bishop's  church,  where  ordinations  and  such  other 
services  are  held,  as  will  ultimately  take  place  in 
the  Cathedral  itself;  the  Rev.  Mr.  Peter  is  the  assistant 
under  Dr.  Devries  at  St.  Mark's,  and  Mr.  W.  B.  Trott  is 
Lay  Reader. 

The  Chapel  of  the  Good  Shepherd  in  St.  Mark's 
parish  is  under  the  charge  of  the  Rev.  Messrs.  Rhine- 
lander  and  Stetson.  Within  the  past  year  the  congre- 
gation has  removed  to  the  new  church,  partly  com- 
pleted, the  basement  of  which  has  been  fitted  up  for 
temporary  use  (while  the  old  building  is  kept  as  a 
clergy  house  and  mission  room),  for  the  ever-growing 
work  in  that  important  part  of  Northeast  Washington, 
where  the  population  is  increasing  so  very  fast.  Some- 
what further  on,  All  Saints'  Chapel,  in  St.  Matthew's 
parish,  is  under  the  charge  of  the  same  clergymen. 

In  St.  Alban's  parish  (in  the  midst  of  which  the  Ca- 
thedral Close  stands),  with  the  consent  of  the  Rector  and 
vestry,  Rev.  C.  N.  Clement  Brown,  Deaconess  Libbey 
and  Messrs.  Gilfillan,  Holmead  and  Pole  are  doing 
Cathedral  mission  work  at  Tenley,  at  the  Conduit  Road 


o 


THE  CATHEDRAL  ORGANISATION.  49 

or  Palisades  of  the  Potomac,  at  Broad  Branch,  at  Fort 
Reno  and  at  Glen  Echo  (with  the  consent  of  the  rector 
and  vestry  of  All  Saints'  Parish). 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Pierce,  Chaplain  of  the  U.  S.  Army 
at  Fort  Myer,  has  also  kindly  assisted  in  the  work, 
chiefly  by  preaching  through  the  summer  at  the  open- 
air  services  on  the  Cathedral  Close. 

All  this  work  varies  necessarily,  not  only  as  year 
follows  year,  but  as  congregations  develop  in  size, 
and  missions  in  stability,  at  different  centres.  Again, 
as  part  of  this  work  is  being  done  in  parishes  which 
once  were  weak,  it  rightly  becomes  more  and  more 
parochial  in  character  as  these  same  parishes  grow 
stronger,  and  the  mission  workers  pass  to  other  fields. 
For  these  reasons  it  is  impossible  to  give  such  exact 
statistics  of  its  nature  and  progress,  such  as  appear  in 
an  ordinary  parochial  report. 

It  may  suffice  to  say  that  since  1896,  with  the  help  of 
the  Pro-Cathedral  clergy,  about  fifteen  deacons  and  the 
same  number  of  priests  have  been  prepared  for  ordina- 
tion by  the  Bishop. 

One  church  has  been  built  so  far  that  the  congrega- 
tion can  now  worship  in  its  basement  story  continuously. 
Two  or  three  new  mission  stations  have  been  founded 
and  are  regularly  supplied  with  services ;  509  children 
and  adults  have  been  baptized,  482  persons  have  been 
confirmed,  608  new  Sunday-school  scholars  have  been 
added,  997  new  families  also  have  been  added  to  the 
Church.  There  are  now  upwards  of  1,000  young 
persons  under  religious  instruction  in  these  churches 
and  missions;   and  hundreds  of  families  have  been 


50  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

visited  at  their  homes  who  have  been  heretofore  without 
any  pastoral  ministrations  whatever. 

The  Cathedral  School. 

The  corner-stone  of  the  National  Cathedral  School, 
founded  by  Mrs.  Phcebe  A.  Hearst,  was  laid  by  the 
Bishops  of  Washington  and  Maryland  on  Ascension 
Day,  1899.  In  the  following  year  the  building  was 
completed  and  the  school  was  opened  on  October  1, 
1900. 

The  principals  of  the  school  are  Miss  Lois  A.  Bangs 
and  Miss  Mary  B.  Whiton. 

In  so  short  a  space  as  can  be  given  to  this  subject 
very  little  beyond  a  statement  of  the  ideals  upon  which 
the  school  was  founded  can  be  made. 

The  religious  instruction  is  under  the  care  of  the 
Bishop  of  Washington,  and  of  the  Rev.  G.  C.  F. 
Bratenahl,  the  Rector  of  the  parish  church,  St.  Alban, 
which  church  the  school  family  attends. 

The  business  management  and  general  direction  of 
the  school  is  in  the  hauds  of  Miss  Bangs  and  Miss 
Whiton,  the  former  principals  of  a  college  preparatory 
school  in  New  York  City,  in  which  they  had,  for  many 
years,  held  the  privilege  of  sending  pupils  upon  their 
own  certificate  without  further  examination  to  four 
colleges  :  Smith,  Vassar,Wellesley  and  Mount  Holyoke. 

While  it  is  sincerely  hoped  that  the  new  school  will 
stimulate  interest  in  college  preparation  here  in  Wash- 
ington, and  so  broaden  and  deepen  the  education  of 
our  girls,  no  pains  are  spared,  no  method  left  untried, 
to  give  students  for   whom  a   college   course  is   not 


n 


THE  CATHEDRAL  ORGANISATION.         51 

desirable  a  thorough  and  symmetrical  education  with 
special  advantages  in  modern  languages,  history, 
literature,  science,  music  and  art. 

The  foundation  upon  which  the  curriculum  rests  is 
love  of  "  Christ  and  His  Children,"  and  the  purpose  to 
prove  that  under  God's  leading  all  the  triumphs  of  the 
new  education  may  be  laid  at  His  feet  and  a  Church 
School  put  in  the  front  rank  of  those  schools  which 
are  leading  educational  thought  in  this  country.  It 
is  recognized  that  the  history  of  the  school,  yet  to  be 
written,  must  help  to  prove  that  the  triumphs  of  the 
new  education  are  at  the  largest,  and  its  defects  at  the 
smallest,  when  it  is  religious  as  well  as  new. 

There  are  at  present  19  teachers,  58  home  pupils,  and 
38  day  scholars.  The  school  is  already  self-supporting 
at  the  present  time. 

Although  the  following  committees  are  purely  vol- 
untary associations  of  those  who  are  taking  an  interest 
in  the  growth  of  the  Cathedral  of  Washington,  and, 
therefore,  are  not  connected  with  its  organisation,  their 
co-operation  has  been  in  every  way  so  valuable  and 
helpful,  that  this  description  of  the  Cathedral  Founda- 
tion would  be  incomplete  and  imperfect  without  a  brief 
account  of  what  these  associations  have  been  doing. 

The  Cathedral  Park  Board. 

This  Association  is  composed  of  ladies  of  Washington 
and  other  cities,  and  its  object  is  the  care,  improve- 
ment and  development  of  the  Cathedral  park.  Acting 
under  the  authority  of  the  Bishop  and  the  Cathedral 
Trustees  this  Board  has  secured  the  services  of  Miss 


52  THE  BUILDING  OP  A  CATHEDRAL. 

Beatrix  Jones  as  landscape  gardener,  and  has  under- 
taken the  work  of  laying  out  paths,  building  roads 
and  fences,  planting  trees  and  improving  the  grounds 
as  fast  as  the  funds  raised  for  the  purpose  will  allow. 
The  whole  Cathedral  Close  is  open  to  the  public 
from  sunrise  to  sunset ;  much  has  already  been  done  to 
make  the  grounds  more  attractive,  and  the  advantages 
of  the  situation  become  more  and  more  apparent  with 
each  successive  year  of  care.  The  Close,  with  its 
wonderful  view  from  the  Peace  Cross,  has  become  one 
of  the  attractions  of  Washington  ;  and  when  Mass- 
achusetts avenue  is  open  in  the  spring  of  1902,  there 
will  be  a  broad  street  with  asphalt  pavement  leading 
straight  from  Dupont  Circle  to  the  south  gate  of 
the  Cathedral  grounds,  and  the  number  of  visitors  will 
be  correspondingly  increased. 

The  Committees  on  the  Washington   Cathedral. 

At  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  George  Wharton  Pepper,  of 
Philadelphia,  two  years  ago,  the  plan  was  adopted  of 
forming  committees  on  the  National  Cathedral  of  our 
Church  in  various  cities  and  dioceses.  With  the  con- 
sent of  the  bishops  of  their  respective  dioceses  such  com- 
mittees have  already  been  formed,  first  in  Philadelphia, 
in  which  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  signed 
and  the  first  Continental  Congress  met.  In  New  York, 
where  General  Washington,  the  first  President  of  the 
United  States,  was  inaugurated ;  in  Boston,  where  the 
first  campaign  of  General  Washington  and  the  heroes 
of  the  Revolution  took  place  ;  and  in  the  city  of  Wash- 
ington itself.    Within  the  past  year  similar  committees 


n 


o 


THE  CATHEDRAL  ORGANISATION.  53 

have  been  formed  in  Newport,  Rhode  Island,  and  in 
San  Francisco,  California,  and  it  is  hoped  that  ere 
long  there  will  be  committees  representing  the  Cathe- 
dral of  Washington  in  most  of  the  dioceses  of  the  Ameri- 
can Church.  The  chief  object  of  these  associations  is  to 
evoke  interest  among  all  the  churchmen  of  America  in 
the  Cathedral  at  the  National  Capital.  In  the  mean- 
time each  of  these  committees  has  also  generously  under- 
taken to  raise  a  certain  proportion  of  the  interest  upon 
the  mortgage  which  still  encumbers  the  land,  while  the 
Bishop  of  Washington  concentrates  his  efforts  in  secur- 
ing funds  for  the  payment  of  the  principal.  Through 
the  help  of  these  committees  that  interest  has  been 
promptly  paid  ;  while,  in  some  cases,  several  thousand 
dollars  have  likewise  been  contributed,  in  addition,  for 
the  payment  of  the  principal. 

On  the  Feast  of  Ascension  Day,  May  8,  1902, 
it  is  proposed,  God  willing,  to  open  the  Little  Sanc- 
tuary for  Divine  Service,  and  for  the  first  time  to 
celebrate  the  Holy  Communion  at  that  Jerusalem 
Altar,  hewn  from  rock  which  lay  so  close  "  to  the  place 
called  Calvary."  It  is  hoped  that  representatives  from 
all  the  committees  on  the  National  Cathedral  which 
have  been  formed  in  various  dioceses  up  to  the  present 
time,  will  be  present  on  that  day  to  participate  in  the 
Service. 


54  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 


CHAPTER  V. 

The  Object  and  Purpose  of  the  Washington 
Cathedral. 

The  question  is  often  asked :  "  Of  what  use  is  a 
great  Cathedral  in  this  practical  age  ? "  Men  say : 
"  We  see  at  a  glance  the  value  of  hospitals  and  infir- 
maries, of  schools  and  colleges,  of  libraries  and 
museums  of  art,  but  fail  to  distinguish  that  of  a  costly 
cathedral.  It  seems  like  an  anachronism  in  these 
days  of  modern  civilization." 

How  far  such  sentiments  are  the  result  of  deep  relig- 
ious thought ;  how  far  they  are  only  an  expression  of 
a  passing  spirit  of  the  age,  it  will  be  for  future  genera- 
tions to  determine.  It  is,  of  course,  perfectly  natural  that 
disbelievers  in  Christianity  should  speak  thus,  but 
Christian  people,  before  committing  themselves  to  the 
same  opinions,  should  take  the  New  Testament  into 
their  hands  and  contrast  the  atmosphere  in  which 
Christ  and  His  Apostles  lived  and  thought  and  spoke, 
with  that  of  modern  conventional  Christianity.  If  a 
great  Cathedral  stands  out  as  a  witness  for  certain 
spiritual  truths,  for  certain  aspects  of  New  Testament 
life  and  belief,  for  a  side  of  the  Christian  religion 
which  our  modern  one-sided  Christianity  has  lost 
sight  of  and  forgotten,  can  we  call  it  "  a  useless 
anachronism  "  ? 


THE  USE  AND  WORK  OF  A  CATHEDRAL.  55 

In  this  connection,  we  venture  to  present  a  few  con- 
siderations to  the  attention  of  every  thoughtful  Chris- 
tian reader  of  these  pages. 


Christ,  in  the  Temple,  told  the  people  that  the  first 
and  greatest  of  all  the  commandments  of  God  is  this : 
"  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord,  thy  God,  with  all  thy  heart 
and  with  all  thy  soul  and  with  all  thy  mind." 

If  there  was  ever  an  age  when  this  commandment 
needs  to  be  emphasised,  or  when  the  Church  of  Christ 
should  stand  forth  as  a  fearless  witness  of  its  pre-emi- 
nent importance,  it  is  in  this  dawning  twentieth  cen- 
tury. The  temper  of  the  age  is  sociological  rather 
than  theological.  Men  think  that  it  is  more  important 
to  have  right  ideas  about  humanity  than  to  have  right 
ideas  about  God ;  and  argue  that,  however  beautiful 
and  devotional  in  sentiment  the  theological  side  of 
Christianity  may  be,  different  men  will  always  have 
different  opinions  regarding  God,  while  they  have  no 
question  at  all  about  a  practical  religion  which  teaches 
the  Brotherhood  of  Man. 

We  find  here,  undoubtedly,  the  chief  cause  of  the 
so-called  decay  of  faith  in  the  doctrines  of  Christianity. 
If  men  seem  to  have  lost  not  only  the  spirit,  but  the 
very  idea  of  worship  ;  if  they  deem  that  churches  and 
cathedrals  are  of  less  importance  than  schools  and  hos- 
pitals, it  is  not  that  we  are  less  religious  than  our  fore- 
fathers, or  that  Christianity  has  lost  its  hold  upon  the 
present  generation,  but  it  is  because  the  world,  in  its 
sudden  realisation  of  all   that  neighborly  love  can  do 


56  THE  BUILDING^OF  A  CATHEDRAL 

for  the  human  race  is  placing  Christ's  Second  Com- 
mandment above  the  First. 

We  Christians  should  have  a  care  how  we  misinter- 
pret that  sacred  phrase,  "  the  Brotherhood  of  Man." 
You  can  not  have  the  real  brotherhood  of  man  without 
the  Fatherhood  of  God,  for  brotherhood  implies  con- 
sanguinity ;  a  bond  of  union  in  a  common  father ;  a 
common  consciousness  that  we  owe  everything  to  that 
Father  and  share  His  love.  Now,  all  that  we  men 
know  regarding  the  Fatherhood  of  God  we  have  learned 
only  in  and  through  Jesus  Christ,  His  Son.  If  we 
love  God  because  He  first  loved  us,  and  so  loved  us  as 
to  send  His  only-begotten  Son  into  the  world  to  save 
us,  then,  only  in  proportion  as,  through  Christ,  we 
approach  and  love  our  Father  in  Heaven,  can  we  feel 
the  eternal  yearnings  of  real  brotherhood  for  our  fel- 
lowman. 

If  it  is  true  that  in  past  ages,  the  Church,  dwelling 
too  exclusively  upon  the  love  of  God,  and  the  neces- 
sity of  worship,  has  forgotten  the  corresponding  obli- 
gation of  love  to  our  neighbour  and  been  guilty 
of  a  heathen  cruelty,  a  relentless  persecution  of  adver- 
saries and  a  lack  of  Christian  charity,  the  memory 
of  which  will  last  for  generations  to  come ;  it  is  also 
true  that  this  last  age,  with  all  its  generosity,  phil- 
anthropic works  and  Christian  magnanimity,  has  gone 
to  the  very  opposite  extreme.  In  its  enthusiastic  de- 
votion to  the  cause  of  humanity  it  is  playing  fast  and 
loose  with  the  heart's  deepest  convictions  about  the 
truth  of  God ;  it  is  ignoring  carelessly  the  plainest 
teachings  of  Jesus  Christ ;  it  is  dragging   down   the 


THE  USE  AND  WORK  OP  A  CATHEDRAL.  57 

Religion  of  the  Incarnation  to  the  popular  level  of 
Natural  Religion.  Every  previous  era  has  had  its 
peculiar  temptations  and  assaults  upon  the  Faith  of 
the  Gospels ;  this  is  the  subtle  danger  with  which 
Christianity  has  had  to  contend  in  these  present  days. 

Action  and  reaction  are  a  law,  not  only  in  dy- 
namics, but  in  human  thought  and  human  life. 
This  age  may  temporarily  set  its  human  knowledge 
above  Christ's  knowledge,  but  sooner  or  later  a  strong 
reaction  will  come,  at  least,  among  Christians,  and 
in  the  flood  of  heavenly  light  which  will  then  break 
upon  human  minds,  men  will  see  that  the  highest 
blessing  of  all  is  that  which  our  Lord  sets  forth  when 
He  says  :  "  This  is  life  eternal,  to  know  Thee  the  only 
true  God  and  Jesus  Christ  Whom  Thou  hast  sent." 
The  consciousness  of  loving  and  being  loved  by  God 
and  of  serving  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  is  the  pearl 
of  great  price,  the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ,  the 
possession  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  And  the  hearts 
in  which  that  love  exists  must  outpour  their  thanks- 
givings and  express  their  allegiance  to  Christ  in  joy- 
ous acts  of  worship. 

In  every  age  which  preceded  our  own  such  worship 
has  been  the  spontaneous  and  irrepressible  instinct  of 
all  true  devotional  life.  Prayer  and  praise  are  not  only 
the  characteristic  expression  of  the  life  lived  by  the 
holiest  men  and  women  in  Bible  times,  but  in  all  the 
Christian  centuries  as  well.  And  when  Christ  called 
the  Jewish  Temple  "  a  house  of  prayer  for  all  people  " 
He  set  forth,  then  and  there,  the  ideal  of  every 
church  or  cathedral  which  bears  the  holy  name  of  His 
religion. 


5K  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

II. 

And  now  the  question  arises,  what  is  worship  ?  Such 
worship,  we  mean,  as  will  meet  and  satisfy  the  ideal 
set  before  us  by  Christ  Himself? 

The  great  cathedrals  of  Europe,  from  time  imme- 
morial, have  been  filled  with  a  throng  of  worshippers 
who  are  so  spellbound  by  the  magnificence  of  the  ritual, 
that  a  foreigner  often  whispers  to  himself,  "  Would 
that  I  had  the  instinct  of  worship  as  these  kneeling 
people  feel  it ;"  yet,  if  one  should  visit  these  very  people 
in  their  homes,  he  would  discover  that,  in  their  daily  life, 
as  husbands  and  wives,  as  parents  and  children,  as  buyers 
and  sellers  on  the  streets,  they  fall,  as  a  rule,  far  below 
the  level  of  men  who  make  no  profession  of  religion 
whatever.  Then,  the  question  arises,  "  Is  there  a  dis- 
tinction to  be  drawn  between  worship  and  morality, 
worship  and  intellectual  life?"  No,  the  difficulty 
lies  in  men's  false  ideas  of  worship  ;  for  true  worship  is 
the  expression  of  love  to  God.  Christ  said  to  us  all, 
"  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy 
heart  and  with  all  thy  soul  and  with  all  thy  mind." 
Christ  himself  is  "  the  Lord  our  Righteousness."  He 
is  called  by  St.  John  the  Logos,  or  "  Word  of  God," 
which  means  that  He  is  intellectually  and  morally,  as 
well  as  spiritually,  the  Way,  the  Truth  and  the  Life. 

And  man,  who  is  made  in  the  image  of  God,  intel- 
lectually, morally  and  spiritually,  can  only  worship 
God  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  when  he  employs  all  his 
faculties  in  such  worship. 

The  kind  of  church  service,  therefore,  which  does 
not  inspire  the  worshippers  to  live  moral  lives,  to  be  bet- 


Q 


E- 


THE  USE  AND  WORK  OF  A  CATHEDRAL.  59 

ter  husbands  and  wives,  better  parents  and  better  citi- 
zens ;  or  which  fails  to  make  them  more  intelligent,  as 
well  as  more  devout,  must  have  some  inherent  moral 
defect. 

The  Cathedral  of  the  future,  in  its  worship,  should 
stimulate  every  nobler  instinct  of  our  manhood.  While 
its  form  of  prayer  should  be,  of  course,  the  ancient 
liturgy  of  the  Church,  outward  forms  and  ceremonies 
should  never  obscure  that  high  ideal  of  worship  set 
forth  by  Christ  himself. 

A  house  of  prayer  for  all  people  means  not  only  a 
House  of  God  where  all  people  are  welcome,  but  where 
all  people  can  join  in  a  service,  in  which  while  they 
pray  with  the  spirit,  they  pray  with  the  understanding 
also  ;  not  only  a  church  where  all  the  congregation 
sing  praises  with  understanding,  but  a  church  which 
unites  every  congregation  in  every  place,  with  the 
people  of  God  in  all  ages. 

And,  perhaps,  among  English-speaking  peoples,  no 
book,  after  the  Bible  itself,  brings  so  vivid  a  realisa- 
tion of  the  Communion  of  Saints,  as  the  Book  of  Com- 
mon Prayer.  Its  confessions  of  sin  touch  deeper  depths 
of  penitence  and  its  thanksgivings  rise  to  higher 
heights  of  praise  than  any  single  worshipper  ever 
feels.  Every  time  we  come  to  church  we  are  in  the 
presence  of  a  devotional  life  which  transcends  our  per- 
sonal experience. 

We  are  listening  to  the  hymns  of  the  ages,  to  the 
prayers  of  the  ages,  to  the  voice  of  the  Church  of  the 
ages,  as  she  worships  her  Lord  and  her  God.     And 


60  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

the  same  Prayer  Book  which  thus  hands  down  to  us 
the  liturgical  heritage  of  the  ancient  Catholic  Church 
breathes  also  the  evangelical  influence  of  the  Reforma- 
tion. 

III. 

And  this  leads  us  on  to  the  silent  influence  of  such 
worship  in  the  direction  of  Christian  unity. 

No  one  can  foretell  that  day  when  Christ's 
prayer,  that  all  His  disciples  shall  be  one,  may  be 
answered,  or  when  the  reunion  of  Christendom  shall 
come,  but  He  has  shown  us  in  His  Highpriestly  prayer 
(St.  John  xvii),  that  real  Christian  unity  begins  not  at 
man  but  at  God.  It  is  not  for  us  to  know  "  the  times  or 
the  seasons."  That  era  certainly  will  not  come  until 
churches  and  Christians  become  more  Christ-like.  But 
if  our  National  Episcopal  Cathedral  breathes  that  spirit 
of  worship  which  emanates  from  the  Prayer  Book  itself  it 
will  be  both  Catholic  and  Protestant.  Catholic,  in  stand- 
ing as  a  living  present  witness  of  what  the  Holy, 
Catholic  and  Apostolic  Church  is,  and  was,  in  the  first 
three  centuries  after  Christ,  before  the  mediaeval  nov- 
elties .  of  Roman  Catholicism  were  ever  heard  of; 
Protestant,  in  holding  to  those  evangelical  principles 
of  the  Gospel  so  dear  to  our  American  forefathers. 

For  Protestantism  is  something  more  than  a  protest 
against  the  errors  of  Rome ;  it  has  a  positive 
basis ;  it  is  a  protest  for  a  lost  element  of  the 
ancient  Catholic  Faith.  The  Reformation  was  a  pro- 
test in  behalf  of  the  inward,  which  had  been  sacrificed 
for  the  outward ;  a  protest  in  behalf  of  the  sacredness 
of  human  personality,  of  the  right  of  the  individual 


THE  USE  AND  WORK  OF  A  CATHEDRAL.  61 

and  of  the  freedom  of  conscience,  all  of  which  had 
been  sacrificed  for  outward  forms,  outward  professions 
of  belief  and  the  preservation  of  Church  organization. 

The  English  Church  of  the  sixteenth  century  made 
room  in  her  system  for  these  positive  elements  of  the 
Protestant  Reformation,  without  sacrificing  the  herit- 
ages which  bound  her  to  the  past.  With  the  Bible  in 
her  hands,  and  the  history  of  the  Primitive  Church 
before  her  eyes,  she  saw  clearly  and  unmistakably  that 
this  movement  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  apart  from 
its  exaggeration,  was,  in  a  deeper  sense,  not  only  a  re- 
formation but  the  restoration,  under  God,  of  a  true,  script- 
ural principle,  which  was  manifested  in  the  free  Catholic 
life  and  the  robust  Apostolic  faith  of  the  early  Church. 

Just  as  true  civil  liberty  means  that  a  man  is  per- 
fectly free  up  to  that  point  where  his  own  liberty 
interferes  of  the  freedom  of  other  men  ;  so  does  the 
religious  liberty  of  our  own  branch  of  the  Church  of 
Chiist.  In  our  Church  there  is  full  freedom  for  Catholic 
thought  up  to  that  point  where  it  conflicts  with  inward 
Protestant  convictions,  and  for  Protestant  thought  up 
to  the  limit  where  it  does  violence  to  the  Catholic 
instincts  of  a  Divine  Society ;  full  freedom  on  the  one 
hand,  for  the  principles  of  the  great  historic  churches 
which  would  keep  their  continuity  with  the  past ; 
and  on  the  other,  for  modern  Protestantism  in  its 
aspirations  to  be  in  touch  with  the  living,  religious 
movements  of  the  present.  Nor  is  our  Church 
logically  inconsistent,  as  is  so  often  charged,  in  com- 
bining these  two  tendencies,  for  they  are  not  mutually 
antagonistic,  but  inter-dependent.     In  the  Anglican 


62  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

Communion,  as  in  the  Primitive  Church,  all  true 
Catholic  and  Protestant  tendencies  find  united  and 
adequate  expression.  As  the  Bible  itself  is  larger 
than  any  of  those  sects  which  claim  the  Bible  as  their 
own,  so  the  Prayer  Book  is  greater  than  any  one  of 
those  schools  of  churchmanship  in  the  Anglican  Com- 
munion which  prize  the  Prayer  Book.  And  just  as 
our  Church  resists,  as  by  a  divine  instiuct,  every  attempt, 
whether  from  the  Catholic  side  or  the  Protestant  side, 
to  narrow  her  comprehensiveness,  so  our  National 
Cathedral  should  stand  in  the  capital  of  the  whole 
country,  not  as  a  monument  of  the  spirit  of  sectarian- 
ism, but  as  a  witness  for  Christiau  unity,  with  that 
Anglican  basis  for  the  Reunion  of  Christendom  in- 
scribed over  its  doorway : 

"  Holy  Scripture  and  Apostolic  creed  ; 
Holy  Sacrament  and  Apostolic  order. " 

IV. 

Let  us  now  pass  from  the  idea  of  Cathedral  worship 
to  that  of  Cathedral  work.  Those  who  affirm  that 
Cathedrals  will  be  useless  in  our  American  Church  life 
never  rise  in  thought  above  parish  life  and  its  activities, 
and,  therefore,  conclude  that  there  are  no  needs  which 
the  parish  cannot  fill.  Here  in  America  especially, 
where,  with  our  American  genius  for  organisation, 
parish  work  has  been  developed  to  so  high  a  degree  of 
efficiency,  it  has  become  a  natural  conclusion  with  many 
that  no  higher  or  wider  kind  of  organisation  is  needed. 
But  let  us  pause  and  consider.  St.  Paul  describes  the 
Church  as  the  Body  of  Christ,  and  the  analogy,  as  Bishop 


The  Peace  Cross 


THE  USE  AND  WORK  OF  A  CATHEDRAL.  63 

Westcott  has  well  said,  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  in- 
stances of  prophetic  insight  in  the  whole  New  Testa- 
ment. Is  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that  all  the  poten- 
tialities and  activities  of  the  Church,  as  the  Body  of 
Christ,  are  called  into  operation  by  the  parish?  Does 
it  not  stand  to  reason  that  there  must  be  larger  powers 
and  capacities  in  the  organic  life  of  the  Church  than 
are  evoked  by  parochial  effort  in  separate  congrega- 
tions? And  that,  if  there  are  these  latent  capacities 
for  combined  religious  and  social  activities  in  a  larger 
sphere  of  influence,  they  must  continue  to  remain  dor- 
mant until  they  are  called  into  exercise  by  a  kind  of 
organisation  which  is  larger  than  a  parish  ?  There  is 
a  parochial  perspective,  a  diocesan  perspective  and 
even  a  national  perspective  in  Church  work.  There 
are  congregational  needs,  and  needs  which  no  single 
congregation  can  possibly  meet — missionary  needs, 
sociological  needs,  educational  needs,  which  only  a 
great  Mission  Church,  like  a  cathedral,  with  its  wider 
organisation  in  missionary  and  educational  depart- 
ments, and  its  trained  corps  of  specialists  in  historical 
theological  and  sociological  knowledge,  can  satisfy. 

As  Archbishop  Benson  has  so  clearly  shown,  the 
least  part  of  the  work  of  a  cathedral  is  that  which  is 
directly  connected  with  the  cathedral  building  itself. 
Here,  indeed,  that  continuous  worship  is  offered  which 
is  the  inspiration  of  every  effort  and  which  sanctifies 
the  motive  of  every  worker ;  but  the  needs  of  Christ's 
growing  Kingdom  of  Heaven  on  earth  are  the  ever 
present  theme  of  study.  And  the  sphere  of  labour  is 
the  supra-parochial  work  of  the  whole  diocese. 


64  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

V. 

Especially  is  this  the  case  with  that  Cathedral  which 
is  to  take  its  stand  in  the  capital  of  our  country. 

Washington,  as  the  political  centre  of  the  United 
States,  is  the  least  sectional  city  of  the  whole  Republic  ; 
it  belongs  to  the  country  at  large.  No  North  or  South, 
East  or  West,  are  recognized  in  Washington,  for 
prominent  men  dwell  here,  side  by  side,  from  every 
part  of  the  Union.  This  constitutes  at  once  a  grave 
danger  and  a  great  advantage.  It  is  a  danger,  for  a 
careless  feeling  of  irresponsibility  is  thus  engendered 
regarding  social  conditions  and  religious  influences, 
which  does  not  exist  elsewhere.  Washington  is  not  the 
real  home  of  those  statesmen  and  their  families,  nor  is 
the  parish  they  attend  their  church  home.  The  influ- 
ences which  govern  their  social  life,  their  religious  life, 
and  the  education  of  their  children  are  not  home  influ- 
ences. In  addition  to  this,  here  are  concentrated  in  a 
comparatively  small  city,  those  social  conditions,  diplo- 
matic surroundings  and  court  influences  which  belong 
to  every  national  capital  in  modern  civilization.  And 
these  foreign  social  influences  are  bound  to  increase  as 
our  country  assumes  more  and  more  of  an  international 
position.  If  there  is  any  one  city  where  religious  im- 
pressions need  to  be  strengthened  and  religious  prin- 
ciples upheld,  it  is  in  the  capital  of  our  own  country. 
Yet,  such  influences  cannot  be  made  strong  and  effect- 
ive unless  they  are  brought  to  bear  in  supra-parochial 
ways. 

Take,  for  example,  that  very  important  matter,  the 
education  of  children.  Everywhere  about  us  to-day, 
fathers  and   mothers  who  call  themselves  Christians 


u 


t- 


THE  USE  AND  WORtf  OP  A  CATHEDRAL.  65 

are  educating  their  sons  and  their  daughters  in  intel- 
lectual pursuits,  in  modern  languages  and  accomplish- 
ments, while  they  seem  to  be  utterly  deaf  to  those 
strong,  earnest  words,  in  which  Christ  Himself  not 
only  emphasised  His  own  care  and  love  for  chil- 
dren, but  warned  us  to  "take  heed"  how  we  put  any 
stumbling  block  in  the  way  of  their  souls.  Christian 
character — the  kind  of  character  which  means  honest, 
wholesome  manhood,  and  pure,  refined  womanhood, 
truthfulness,  simplicity,  a  hatred  for  shams,  a  deep  rever- 
ence for  good,  a  courage  in  doing  right,  and  a  firm  sense 
of  responsibility  regarding  duty — is  what  is  most  needed 
in  these  days.  If  our  Western  Bishops  have  found  it 
necessary  to  establish  schools,  especially  for  the  girls 
who  are  to  be  the  mothers  of  the  coming  generation,  do 
we  not  need  even  more  in  Washington  schools  for  those 
daughters  of  Senators  and  Congressmen  who  are  now 
being  sent  to  Roman  Catholic  convents  ?  In  this,  as  in 
many  other  ways,  the  astute  Roman  Church  is  far 
ahead  of  us.  But  we  are  thankful  to  say  that  the 
Cathedral  School  for  Girls  has  already  risen  to  a  posi- 
tion of  prominence  among  the  girl  schools  of  America. 
This  is  only  the  beginning  of  the  educational  work  that 
the  Cathedral  Foundation  can  do.  Our  limits  now 
oblige  us  to  pass  on  to  another  kind  of  Cathedral  work 
even  more  important. 

VI. 
We  have  said  that  the  absence  of  all  local  influences 
in  the  capital  of  the  country  constitutes  not  only  a 
danger  but  an  advantage.  One  of  the  most  marked 
advantages  is  the  opportunity  for  stimulating  interest 
in  missionary  work.     Washingtonians,  by  their  very 


66  The  building  of  a  cathedral. 

residence  in  Washington,  feel  that  they  belong,  not  to 
any  particular  State,  but  to  the  whole  country.  Indeed, 
far-seeing  American  statesmen  in  Congress  have  inten- 
tionally produced  this  result  by  withholding  the  right 
of  suffrage  from  all  residents  in  the  District  of  Columbia, 
and  thus  preventing  the  evils  of  local  politics  among 
those  who  reside  at  the  seat  of  the  National  Govern- 
ment. As  a  natural  consequence  their  interest  is 
evoked  by  national  more  than  by  local  matters. 

Such  a  state  of  mind  leads  Church  people  to  take  a  far 
more  vivid  interest  in  Missionary  work  than  if  they  were 
differently  situated.  Their  eyes  are  accustomed  to  wide 
horizons.  Hearing  so  constantly  of  the  work  of  the 
Government  in  such  widely  separated  regions  as  the 
Philippines  and  Hawaii,  as  Alaska  and  Puerto  Rico, 
as  China  and  Japan,  they  appreciate  what  the  Mission 
of  the  Church  also  means.  They  realise  the  significance 
of  the  "  Kingdom  "  and  of  Christ's  message  "  The  King- 
dom of  Heaven  is  at  hand."  Again,  the  absence  in 
Washington  of  those  social  problems  regarding  poverty 
and  vice,  which  characterise  most  of  our  overcrowded 
modern  cities,  gives  the  people  freedom  to  expend 
their  energies  in  the  Missionary  cause. 

Under  such  circumstances  the  Cathedral  of  Wash- 
ington is  undoubtedly  destined  to  become  a  great  Mis- 
sionary centre.  Nay,  it  will  stand  there  before  all,  as  an 
object  lesson  in  itself,  of  the  freedom  of  the  gospel.  For 
a  house  of  prayer  for  all  people  means  a  spiritual  home 
to  which  men  of  every  class,  rich  and  poor,  statesman, 
tradesman  and  laborer,  may  come  without  money  and 
without  price,  with  the  consciousness  that  it  is  their 
common  Father's  house.     The  great  cathedrals  of  the 


THE  USE  AND  WORK:  OP  A  CATHEDRAL.  67 

Middle  Ages,  while  they  eclipsed  kings'  houses  in  their 
stately  magnificence,  were  called  the  "  palaces  of  the 
poor."  Little  did  the  leaders  of  the  French  Revolution 
realise  when   they  stamped  their  own  motto — "  Lib- 
erty, Equality  and  Fraternity  " — ou  the  portals  of  the 
Cathedral  of  Paris,  that  this  same  cathedral   was  the 
one  place  where  liberty  and  equality  had  been  recog- 
nised and  the  brotherhood  of  all  men  in  Christ  had 
been  taught  through  bygone  centuries.     And  if  this 
were   so  in  mediaeval  Europe,  how   much  more  can 
Christ's  own  ideal  of  a  house  of  prayer  for  all  nations 
be  realised  in  America,  where  all  people  are  declared 
free  and  equal   by   the  Constitution  of  the    country 
itself?     Does  not  a  National  Episcopal  Cathedral  then 
accord  with  the  very  genius  of  the  nation  ?     Think  of 
the  religious  impression  which  such  a  majestic  Cathe- 
dral would  create  in  the  breasts  of  those  who  come 
from  all  parts  of  the  United  States  to  the  capital  of 
their  country ;  and  especially  of  those  outsiders  and 
non-church-goers,  who,  at  home,  hold  themselves  aloof 
from  all  parish  life.     Standing  there,  on  the  height  of 
Mount  Saint  Alban,  the  majestic  towers  of  God's  House 
of  Prayer  cannot  but  be  a  reminder  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  to  every  beholder.     Think  of  the  gospel  lesson 
that  Cathedral  will  preach  to  them  and  their  Repre- 
sentatives in  Congress,  as  they  go  back  to  those  homes ; 
of  the  inspiring  influence  which  such  a  great  mission 
church  will  be,  if  all  people  flock  to  it  as  their  Father's 
house,    find    it    free    as    the   gospel   itself  to    every 
stranger,  are  uplifted  by  its  daily  services  of  common 
prayer,  and  feel  on  each  Lord's  Day  the  eucharistic  joy 
of  the  Lord's  Supper. 


68  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

The  Cathedral  as  a  Witness  for  Jesus   Christ 
and  the  Historic  Church. 

The  Cathedral  of  Washington  will  stand  on  the 
brow  of  the  hill  as  a  ceaseless  object  lesson  for  God. 
In  contrast  to  Athens,  where,  in  the  very  centre  of 
Greek  civilization,  there  stood  an  altar  erected  "  to  an 
JJnknown  God"  we  need,  in  the  capital  of  a  country 
which  marches  at  the  forefront  of  modern  civilization, 
not  an  altar  of  Agnosticism  but  a  witness  for  Him  who 
said  :  "  To  know  Thee,  the  only  true  God  and  Jesus 
Christ  whom  Thou  hast  sent — this  is  life  eternal." 

A  great  building,  as  Dr.  Huntington  has  well  said, 
always  exercises  a  great  influence.  The  cathedrals  of 
Europe,  which  stand  with  open  doors  and  offer  daily 
services  of  prayer  to  God,  have  ever  wielded  a  mys- 
terious influence,  increasing  with  the  increment  of  years 
and  the  development  of  history.  It  is  so  in  all  Chris- 
tian countries  and  in  all  past  history.  No  other  type 
of  building  combines  so  much  religious  sentiment, 
national  and  local ;  none  so  warms  the  heart  of  the 
emigrant  with  the  love  of  home. 

The  greater  the  commercial  prosperity  and  political 
power  of  our  own  Nation,  the  greater  will  be  the 
danger  that  our  heart  be  lifted  up  to  say  :  "  My  power 
and  the  might  of  mine  hand  hath  gotten  me  all  this 
wealth."  And  correspondingly,  the  greater  becomes 
the  need  of  those  broad   religious   influences   which 


the  cathedral  And  the  historic  church.      69 

centre  in  a  National  Cathedral,  lest  we  forget  the  Lord 
our  God — "  lest  we  forget." 

In  Washington  there  are  arising  great  universities 
and  other  imposing  structures,  which  represent  the 
political,  the  intellectual,  the  sesthetical  life  of  the 
people, — and  the  ecclesiastical  supremacy  of  Rome. 

Yet,  this  is  but  the  beginning.  Capitals  of  other 
nations,  like  London,  Paris  or  Rome,  have  existed  for 
centuries.     Our  own  is  but  one  hundred  years  old. 

Washington  is  destined  to  become  a  monumental  city 
of  magnificent  buildings,*  yet  among  those  which,  up 
to  the  present  day,  have  been  erected  and  devoted  to 
civil  government  or  education,  science  or  art,  every 
building  of  equally  majestic  proportions,  which  repre- 
sents the  grandeur  of  the  Christian  Faith,  is  conspicuous 
by  its  absence.  Most  European  cities  have  their  great 
cathedrals  devoted  to  the  worship  of  God,  and  often- 
times these  are  the  edifices  of  all  others  which  make  the 
deepest  and  most  lasting  impression  upon  the  visitor's 
mind.  Is  the  chief  point  of  contrast  between  the  cities 
of  Europe  and  that  city  of  America,  which  is  the 
capital  of  our  country,  to  be  .this  absence  of  any  great 
building  erected  at  Washington  in  Christ's  Name? 
Is  there  to  be  no  monument  in  this  dawning 
twentieth  century  to  bear  witness  that  the  first  settlers 
of  America,  from  Plymouth  Rock  to  Jamestown,  were 
religious  men  ?  None  to  tell  Americans  that  their 
country  was  born  of  God  ? 

*  Never  before  has  this  fact  been  so  thoroughly  appreciated  and 
understood  as  it  is  now ;  since  the  Parking  Commission  appointed 
by  Congress,  a  year  ago,  have  sent  in  their  remarkable  report. 


70  THE  fcUILDlKG  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

We  have  said  that  our  own  Church  is  the  only- 
Christian  body  in  Washington  which  can  well  erect 
a  great  cathedral,  and  is  there  not  also,  lying 
back  of  this,  an  historic  reason  why  thus  it  should  be  ? 

The  more  the  records  of  the  past  are  studied  in  the 
light  of  modern  research  and  principles  of  historic 
criticism,  the  more  plainly  it  will  be  found  that  the 
Anglican  branch  of  the  one,  holy,  Catholic  and  Apos- 
tolic Church  stretches  back  in  one  unbroken  and  con- 
tinuous line  to  Apostolic  days.  Whether  we  trace 
back  the  history  of  its  Episcopate,  or  of  its  English 
Bible  (the  growth  of  a  thousand  years) ;  of  its  English 
Prayer  Book,  or  of  its  parish  life  ;  of  its  holdings  of 
real  estate  ;*  or  of  its  continuous  struggles  against  the 
encroachments  of  the  Papacy,  since  the  days  of  Wil- 
liam the  Conqueror ;  the  same  story  of  continuity  repeats 
itself,  now  in  this  connection  and  then  in  that.  The 
great  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century,  which  made 
such  a  break  in  the  religious  history  of  different 
countries  in  Northern  Europe,  made  no  break  whatever 
in  that  of  English  church  life.  Generations  of  English 
reformers  had,  from  the  days  of  Wickliffe  in  1380,  felt 
the  need  of  reform,  and  when  the  time  for  action  came 
— about  1520 — they  slowly  and  laboriously  tested  every 

*  In  A.  D.  609,  Ethelbert  King  of  Kent  gave,  for  the  support  of 
the  Church  in  London,  an  estate  in  Essex  called  Tillingham.  This 
estate  belongs  to-day  to  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Pauls,  and  has  been  in 
their  possession  for  1300  consecutive  years.  There  is  no  Act  of 
Parliament  taking  this  property  away  from  the  Church  of  Rome 
and  giving  it  to  the  Church  of  England ;  no  legal  claim  of  the 
Church  of  Rome  upon  the  property ;  no  Act  of  Parliament  con- 
firming the  title  to  the  English  Church.  This  is  but  one  example 
out  of  a  great  many  similar  ones,  regarding  the  holdings  of  real 
estate  by  the  Church  of  England. 


fare  tosftmsw  CnrsciRA  Mwaicfta  b  c- 


The  Glastonbury  Cathedra 


THE  CATHEDRAL  AND  THE  HISTORIC  CHURCH.        71 

proposed  reform,  first,  by  the  Holy  Scripture,  and  sec- 
ondly, by  Primitive  Church  life  in  the  first  three 
centuries.  They  took  over  thirty  years  to  complete  their 
work,  and  all  through  that  period  there  was  not  so  much 
as  the  interruption  of  a  single  Sunday's  service.  The 
faith,  the  worship,  the  organisation  of  the  Anglican 
Communion  to-day  is  practically  exactly  what  the 
faith,  the  worship  and  the  organisation  of  the  Primi- 
tive Church  were  in  the  first  three  or  four  centuries  of 
the  Christian  era. 

The  Cathedral  of  SS.  Peter  and  Paul  in  Washington 
will,  therefore,  stand  in  the  capital  of  our  country,  both 
as  a  witness  for  Jesus  Christ  Himself  and  as  a  testimony 
of  the  continuity  of  the  Apostolic  Church  from  New 
Testament  days  down  to  this  twentieth  century  of  the 
Christian  era. 


?2  THE  BtJILDlNG  OP  A  CATHEDRAL. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

The    Cathedral    as    a   Witness    for    Historic 
American  Memories. 

Not  only  will  this  Cathedral  stand  with  others  as 
a  witness  of  what  the  primitive  and  undivided 
Church  was  in  the  first  three  centuries,  before 
the  union  of  Church  and  state  was  ever  heard  of, 
but  it  also  stands  as  a  witness  for  the  faith  of  our 
forefathers.  The  early  settlers  in  the  thirteen  British 
Colonies — from  the  Puritans  of  New  England,  the 
Baptists  of  Rhode  Island  and  the  Congregationalists 
of  Connecticut,  to  the  Quakers  of  Pennsylvania 
and  the  first  Colonists  of  Virginia,  Georgia  and 
the  Carolinas — were  mostly  descendants  of  those 
who  had  belonged  to  the  Church  of  England  for 
untold  centuries ;  nor  would  these,  their  children, 
have  ever  left  her  fold  to  come  to  these  Western 
wilds  had  it  not  been  for  the  union  of  Church 
and  state,  or  had  the  Church  of  England  been  then, 
what  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  is  to-day.  There 
was,  therefore,  a  bond  of  union  with  the  old  mother 
Church,  beneath  all  the  separation  and  dissension  she 
had  caused  ;  and,  as  we  look  back  to  the  beginning  of 
our  own  history  as  a  nation,  it  is  a  significant  fact  that, 
among  our  early  Presidents,  George  Washington, 
James  Madison  and  James  Monroe  and  even  Thomas 


EARLY  CHURCH  MEMORIES  IN  AMERICA.  73 

Jefferson,*  were  all  churchmen.  So  were  Benjamin 
Franklin  and  thirty-four  of  the  fifty-six  signers  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  according  to  Perry's 
History  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  and  his 
other  writings ;  and  of  the  thirty-nine  distinguished 
men  who  framed  the  Constitution  of  these  United  States 
two-thirds  were  by  birth,  by  baptism,  by  family  or 
personal  affiliation  connected  with  the  Episcopal 
Church.  Moreover  a  large  number  of  these  had 
already  been  engaged  in  framing  the  Constitution 
and  canons  of  that  Church,  two  years  before  they 
were  called  upon  to  frame  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  itself.  We  could  never  convict  these 
fathers  of  our  country,  these  patriots,  presidents, 
signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  framers 
of  our  country's  Constitution,  of  the  spirit  of  disloyalty 
to  American  ideas  or  institutions.  Most  of  them  were 
men  of  Christian  convictions.  While,  in  contradis- 
tinction to  English  churchmen,  they  were  the  most 
stalwart  defenders  of  the  separation  of  the  Church 
and  state  ;  they  upheld  the  principle  of  a  free  Church 

*  It  is  said  that  Jefferson  was  an  atheist.  The  real  facts  are  as 
follows  : 

He  was  born  and  brought  up  in  the  Episcopal  Church.  At 
Charlottesville  he  attended  the  services  of  that  Church  in  the  Court 
House,  and  afterward  when  the  people  were  rich  enough  to  build, 
he  himself  drew  the  plans  of  the  church  and  superintended  its 
construction.    He  was  elected  a  vestryman,  and   never  failed  to 

Eerform  the  duties  while  he  was  at  Monticello.  He  freely  gave  of 
is  time  and  money  to  the  Church,  and  also  assisted  in  building 
new  churches  in  other  parts  of  Virginia.  He  indignantly  denied 
that  he  was  an  atheist.  He  not  only  contributed  $50  to  the  Bible 
Society  but  gave  a  copy  of  the  Bible  to  his  descendants  when  each 
became  of  age.  While  in  early  life  he  spoke  of  Christ  as  Jesus, 
and  probably  held  the  belief  of  a  Unitarian  ;  in  his  later  years,  he 
always  called  Him  "Our  Saviour,"  and  his  last  words  were  "  Lord, 
now  lettest  Thou  Thy  servant  depart  in  peace." 


?4  tHE  BUILDING  OP  A  CATflEDRAL. 

in  a  free  state,  and  stood  forth  both  as  distinguished 
statesmen,  on  the  one  hand,  and  as  active  and  loyal 
churchmen,  on  the  other.  We  are  breathing  the  very 
spirit  of  these  revered  ancestors  in  building  our 
churches  by  voluntary  efforts  and  offerings,  and  if  we 
erect  such  churches  as  witnesses  for  Christ  in  every 
town  and  village  of  the  country,  we  ought  surely  to 
have  a  greater  witness  for  Christ  in  the  capital  of  the 
whole  country. 

A  year  ago,  the  Centenary  of  the  city  of  Washing- 
ton was  celebrated,  and  the  address  made,  at  that 
time,  by  Senator  Hoar  of  Massachusetts  may  well  be 
considered  historic.  Among  other  things  he  said : 
"  There  are  few  places  that  can  show,  for  any  one 
century,  more  than  three  products  of  architecture  that 
equal  the  Capitol,  the  Washington  Monument,  and 
the  Congressional  Library.  If  we  can  add  to  the  glory 
of  Washington  three  such  structures  only,  for  each 
coming  century,  we  need  not  be  ashamed  of  compari- 
son with  any  foreign  city,  when  Washington  shall 
have  reached  the  same  age." 

If  three  such  buildings  are  to  be  erected  in  this 
twentieth  century  in  the  capital  of  our  country, 
which,  as  Senator  Hoar  said,  "  is,  in  a  larger  sense, 
a  Washington  Monument,"  why  should  not  one  of 
those  three  be  the  Cathedral  of  Washington  ?  George 
Washington,  the  father  of  his  country,  was  not  only 
a  patriot,  a  military  leader  and  a  statesman,  he  was 
also  a  Christian  man.  He  was  both  a  citizen  of 
the  United  States  and  a  citizen  of  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven.     He  was  not  only  a  Christian  believer, 


EARLY  CHURCH  MEMORIES  IN  AMERICA.  75 

but  a  communicant  of  our  own  Church  and  a 
vestryman  of  his  parish  in  Virginia.  Do  not  these 
associations  and  memories  make  it  seem  all  the  more 
appropriate  that  there  should  be  in  this  city,  which  is 
called  by  Washington's  name,  a  great  Mission  Church 
— a  House  of  Prayer  for  all  people — which  shall  not 
only  stand  as  a  witness  for  Christ  Himself  but  also  as 
a  witness  for  the  faith  of  our  forefathers? 


76  TttEi  BUILDING  OP  A  CATHEDRAL. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

The  Cathedral  of   a   Free  Church  in   a  Free 

State. 

The  Golden  Age  of  the  early,  undivided  Catholic 
and  Apostolic  Church  of  Christ,  the  age  to  which 
Greeks  and  Romans  and  Anglicans  and  all  Protestants 
look  back  for  inspiration,  was  the  first  three  cen- 
turies of  the  Christian  era.  Then,  there  came  slowly 
and  gradually  a  change,  not  for  the  better,  but  for  the 
worse  ;  and  one  of  the  chief  factors,  undoubtedly,  in 
bringing  about  this  change  was  the  union  between 
Church  and  state.  After  the  experience  of  ages  our 
own  beloved  country  stood  out  for  the  separation  be- 
tween Church  and  state,  and  if  there  is  one  principle 
ingrained  in  the  convictions  of  the  American  people, 
it  is  that,  for  the  welfare  of  the  state  itself,  this  separa- 
tion must  be  irrevocable.  But  the  supplemental  truth 
has  not,  as  yet,  been  equally  emphasised.  Churchmen 
should  realise  and  bear  witness  that  for  the  sake  of  the 
Church  of  Christ  herself — for  her  spiritual  welfare,  for 
her  freedom,  for  her  unfettered  growth  and  develop- 
ment— she  should  be  kept  entirely  separate  from  the 
political  influences  of  the  state.  Our  Cathedral  Foun- 
dation should  stand  in  Washington  not  only  as  an 
institution  which  represents  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
in  contradistinction  to  all  human  governments,  but  as 
a  triumphant  witness  that  there  is  in  this  new  world 


The  Hilda  Stone 

From  St.  Hilda'*  Abbey,  Whitby 


THE  CHURCH  AND  POLITICAL  POWER.  77 

of  America  a  branch  of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church 
which  claims  to  be  free — free  as  the  Primitive  Church 
in  Apostolic  days. 

Especially  is  this  needful  in  these  present  times. 
When  Christ  denounced  those  ecclesiastico-political 
rulers  of  His  day  who  compassed  sea  and  land  to  make 
one  proselyte,  He  was  rebuking  a  kind  of  ecclesiastic! sm 
which  has  become  awfully  familiar  to  us  in  the  later 
history  of  the  Christian  Church.  Religion  always 
exercises  an  enormous  power  over  the  lives  of  men. 
The  tremendous  temptation  to  use  the  organised  spirit- 
ual forces  of  the  Church  in  combination  with  the 
political  forces  of  the  state  fetters  both,  and  not  only,  as 
all  experience  proves,  is  demoralising  to  both  church- 
men and  statesmen,  but  it  always  engenders  double- 
mindedness. 

Those  who  are  once  committed  to  the  idea  that  the 
Church  of  Christ  should  wield  temporal  power  must, 
perforce,  act  consistently  with  their  ecclesiastical  creed  : 
nor  can  they  refrain  from  intermeddling  with  politics  to 
promote  the  aggrandizement  of  their  Church.  Surely, 
it  is  not  in  accordance  with  the  moral  principles  of  the 
Gospel  of  Christ  that  His  Church  should  arouse,  by 
methods  which  bear  the  brand  of  such  doubleminded- 
ness,  not  the  confidence,  but  the  suspicion  of  the 
community ;  and  if  this  type  of  ecclesiasticism  has 
already  planted  in  the  capital  of  our  country  a  centre 
of  ultramontane  influence  which  has  been  truly  called 
a  "  dual  Vatican  "  ;  if  the  whole  Roman  hierarchy  in 
America  is  governed  by  a  personal  representative  or 
"  ablegate,"  residing  in  Washington,  of  the  Pope   of 


78  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

Rome,  who  puts  forth  the  claim  of  precedence  over  all 
other  ambassadors,  because  he  is  not  only  the  represent- 
ative of  a  Political  Sovereign  but  of  the  Bishop  of  the 
whole  world,  it  is  high  time  that  we  should  recognize 
the  real  facts  just  as  they  are.  It  is  true,  that  such  a 
claim  is  ignored  by  our  Government,  and  we  may 
feel  quite  sure  that  the  American  people  will  never  pay 
allegiance  to  a  church  which  is  not  only  governed  by  a 
European  ruler  in  Italy,  but  identified  wholly  with 
European  conditions  and  mediaeval  traditions  of  re- 
ligious life.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Roman 
Church,  especially  since  the  acquisition  of  Puerto  Rico 
and  the  Philippines,  as  every  one  in  Washington 
knows,  is  exercising  a  greater  political  influence  than 
ever  before ;  and  this  influence  is  continuously  on  the 
increase. 

The  spirit  of  Romanism  has  become,  in  consequence, 
persistently  aggressive.  Already  this  Church  has 
acquired  more  property  in  land  and  buildings  than 
all  the  other  Christian  bodies  of  Washington  combined, 
and  no  time  should  be  lost  in  establishing  in  Washing- 
ton a  Cathedral  Foundation,  representing  that  higher, 
purer,  more  primitive  ideal  of  the  Catholic  Church 
which  is  in  accordance  not  only  with  the  principles  of 
constitutional  liberty  but  the  very  spirit  of  New  Testa- 
ment churchmanship. 

As  such  a  church  has  no  favors  to  ask  or  receive 
from  the  state;  no  temporal  power  to  gain ;  no  propa- 
gandist work  to  do  in  a  spirit  of  proselytism  ;  as  she 
simply  stands  witness  for  Gospel  Truth  and  Apostolic 
Order,  her  officers  will  be  above  suspicion  and  their 


THE  CHUKCH  AND  POLITICAL  POWER.  79 

innermost  motives  will  be  an  epistle  seen  and  read  of 
all  men. 

And  this  constitutes  a  great  spiritual  opportunity. 
The  Cathedral  preachers  will  be  free,  like  Christ  in  the 
Temple,  to  rebuke  the  class  sins,  the  political  sins,  the 
national  sins  of  the  people;  free  to  stand  forth  as 
Savonarolas,  if  need  be,  in  denouncing  corruption, 
unpatriotism  or  immorality,  whether  in  a  dominant 
political  party  or  in  the  highest  rulers  in  the  land. 
Think  of  the  tremendous  moral  power  of  a  great  Cathe- 
dral preacher,  who  dares,  from  the  pulpit  of  a  free 
church  in  a  free  state,  to  hold  up  the  mirror  of 
Christ's  pure  Gospel,  with  its  high  ethical  standard, 
before  the  eyes  of  those  who  neglect  the  responsibili- 
ties their  country  has  laid  upon  them,  or  who  forget 
that  public  office  is  a  public  trust. 

All  the  great  prophets  of  the  Bible  rebuked  national 
sins  as  a  moral  disease  which  honeycombs  the  life  of 
the  people  ;  and  Dante — whom  we  might  almost  call  a 
descendant  of  the  Old  Testament  prophets  in  the  Chris- 
tian era — lays  bare  the  awful  nature  of  political  sin. 
In  his  vision  of  the  Inferno  he  beholds  first  those 
who  have  sinned  against  their  own  souls — the  drunk- 
ard, the  lustful,  the  prodigal ;  as  he  goes  downward 
where  punishments  and  scenes  become  increasingly 
fearful,  he  comes,  at  last,  to  those  religious  leaders  of 
the  Church,  and  those  political  leaders  of  the  state, 
who,  by  bribery  and  fraud  have  broken  down  public 
morals,  corrupted  the  state  and  sinned  against  society. 
These  traitors  to  God  and  their  country  he  finds  at  the 
bottom  of  the  lowest  hell. 


80  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

Dante  is  gone,  and  the  ancient  prophets  are  gone, 
but  do  we  not  need  to-day  such  servants  of  the  most 
high  God  to  rebuke  spiritual  wickedness  in  high 
places  ?  Do  we  not  need  to  make  more  room  in  our 
American  Church  for  the  prophetic  office  ?  At  pres- 
ent, those  upon  whom  this  gift  is  bestowed  are  fettered 
and  paralyzed  by  the  cares  of  pastoral  work  and  by  the 
ever-increasing  administrative  duties  of  parish  life.  A 
cathedral  pulpit  is,  in  these  modern  days,  the  only  place 
where  the  messenger  of  God  who  interprets  the  faith  of 
the  gospels  can  have  full  time  for  preparation,  full  free- 
dom for  observation  and  study  of  those  influences  which 
make  or  mar  our  civilization,  and  full  opportunity  for 
appealing  to  a  larger  circle  of  hearers  than  any  parish 
church  affords. 

We  are  thankful  to  say  that  through  the  generosity 
of  two  ladies  in  Washington,*  the  beginning  of  a  u  St. 
Chrysostom's  Fund  "  has  been  made,  for  the  endow- 
ment of  the  office  of  a  "  Canon  Missioner."  This  was 
a  wise  and  far-seeing  provision.  As  this  endowment 
increases  from  various  sources,  and,  by  and  by, 
becomes  adequate  for  the  needs  of  the  position,  it  will 
secure  a  succession  of  able  and  eloquent  "  Special 
Preachers,"  each  one  of  whom,  in  his  day  and  genera- 
tion, will  be  a  living  voice  to  deliver  God's  message,  in 
a  way  to  reach  thinking  men  and  women,  and  make 
the  Cathedral  pulpit  a  living  power  in  Washington. 
*  Mrs.  Benjamin  H.  Buckingham  and  Misa  Isabel  C.  Freeman. 


M»p  Showing  P'opowrf    Grading  of  Ctthrdrtl   Site 
Seal*  ia.ft  •>...<* 


The  Cathedral  Close 

Contour  lines  show  proposed  gradings  of  Cathedral  Site 

The  dotted  line  shows  the  South  and  East  Boundary  Lines  of  the 

Cathedral  Land 


THE   CATHEDRAL  BUILDING.  81 

CHAPTER    IX. 

The  Cathedral  Building. 

It  is  only  the  power  and  inspiration  of  a  great 
thought  which  can  stir  the  hearts  of  a  great  people. 
It  is  only  when  truehearted  men  and  women  realise 
what  the  ideal  of  a  National  Cathedral  of  our  Church 
means  that  they  can  attain  its  possibilities ;  it  is  only 
when  they  themselves  reach  out  for  this  ideal  that 
they  can  bring  others  to  share  it.  Therefore,  we  have 
striven  to  show,  in  the  preceding  pages,  what  the 
Cathedral  of  SS.  Peter  and  Paul  in  Washington  may 
stand  for  ;  how  it  should  be  so  truly  national  in  char- 
acter that,  in  every  patriot's  heart,  it  will  inspire  a 
deeper  love  for  God  and  his  country ;  so  strong  a  power 
for  good  in  the  community  that  every  statesman  and 
officer  of  the  civil  government  will  welcome  its  high 
moral  influence  ;  so  comprehensive  in  its  religious 
aims  that,  to  every  Christian  in  this  broad  land,  it  will 
breathe  the  very  spirit  of  New  Testament  Christianity  ; 
so  truly  representative  of  the  Apostolic  Church,  in 
primitive  days,  that  every  churchman  will  recognise 
its  catholic  character ;  and  so  spiritual  in  its  atmos- 
phere that  every  worshipper,  whoever  he  may  be,  or 
from  whatever  land  he  comes,  may  feel  that  here  is  a 
homelike  refuge  which  fulfils  indeed  Christ's  memora. 
ble  words :  "  My  house  shall  be  called  the  house  of 
prayer  for  all  people."    Shall  the  coming  Cathedral  of 


82  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

Washington  stand  in  outward  form  as  well  as  inward 
spirit  as  such  a  fulfilment? 

When,  on  Palm  Sunday,  our  Lord  rode,  amid  the 
welcoming  hosannas  of  the  multitudes,  to  that  great 
cathedral  of  ancient  times,  the  Jewish  Temple,  and 
the  Pharisees  exclaimed :  "  Master,  rebuke  thy  disci- 
ples," His  answer  was,  "  If  these  should  hold  their 
peace,  the  stones  would  immediately  cry  out." 

Were  those  words  the  inspiration  of  Christian 
architecture  ?  It  is  interesting  to  mark  how,  ever 
since  that  day,  architecture  has  struggled  to  carve  in 
stone  the  idea  of  Christian  faith.  Perhaps,  in  the 
cathedrals  of  the  Middle  Ages  we  behold  the  strongest 
expression  of  this  devotional  spirit.  As  we  stand 
beneath  the  towers  and  pinnacles  of  one  of  the  great 
cathedrals  of  England  and  watch  the  ribbed  arches 
mounting  upward,  until  they  meet  above  our  heads, 
like  angels'  fingers  clasped  in  prayer,  we  feel  that  past 
ages  are  really  speaking  to  us  in  the  language  of  stone, 
and  are  overpowered  by  the  consciousness  of  a  religious 
life  which  has  gone  before  us. 

But,  somehow,  in  the  cathedrals  of  the  past,  even  in 
those  of  England  itself,  there  is  a  sense  of  incomplete- 
ness. Nothing  is  finished.  It  is  as  though  the  build- 
ers were  struggling  to  express  a  thought  that  was  too 
great  for  them,  and  must  leave  it  for  future  generations 
to  spell  out  more  plainly  than  they,  Christ's  description 
of  a  house  of  prayer. 

Shall  the  cathedrals  of  the  future  carry  on  the  work 
which  these  so  well  began,  and  bring  to  future  genera- 
tions a  deeper,  fuller  realisation  that  each  cathedral 
church  is  none  other  than  the  House  of  God,  the  gate 
of  Heaven  ? 


THE   CATHEDRAL  BUILDING.  83 

St.  Mark's  Cathedral  in  Venice  is  unsurpassed  in 
popular  estimation  as  an  historic  shrine  of  early  Chris- 
tian art.  But  there  is  an  influence  in  St.  Mark's  greater 
than  any  artistic  attraction.  As  we  enter  between  portals 
and  clustered  columns,  the  leafy  capitals  of  which 
seem  to  be  tossing  and  wTaving  in  some  pentecostal 
gale,  we  are  carried  backward  a  thousand  years,  and 
feel  a  spell  which  no  mediaeval  theology  can  create.  We 
behold  on  all  sides  the  Bible  in  stone,  the  Te  Deum  in 
stone. 

Surrounded  by  the  men  of  all  ages,  "  of  whom 
the  world  was  not  worthy,"  we  walk  beside  Christ, 
and  under  the  shadow  of  His  blessed  life,  from  Bethle- 
hem to  Calvary  ;  and  then,  comes  not  only  a  surprise, 
but  an  inspiring  lesson  from  the  early  Church.  The 
Crucifixion  and  Resurrection  are  not  represented  as 
the  climax  of  the  Gospel  story.  They  are  portrayed 
upon  the  soffit  and  spandrel  of  a  low  bending  arch — 
the  doorway  to  the  triumph  beyond — and  there,  high 
up,  in  the  bright  sunshine  of  the  central  dome,  amid 
the  molten  gold  of  "  a  sea  of  glass  like  unto  crystal," 
sits  enthroned  the  Ascended  Christ,  our  Prophet,  Priest 
and  King. 

Is  there  not  here  an  echo  of  that  eucharistic  note  of 
heavenly  victory  and  superhuman  joy  which  rings 
through  the  New  Testament  ?  The  one  vision  cease- 
lessly before  the  early  Christians  was  that  of  the  cruci- 
fied Christ,  now  sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  God.  His 
last  words  were  ever  ringing  in  their  ears :  "  All  power 
is  given  to  Me  in  heaven  and  on  earth;"  the  one 
prayer  ever  upon  their  lips  was  :  "  Thy  kingdom  come, 
Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven ;"  their  one 


84  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

dominant  feeling  was,  that  they  must  "  Rejoice  ever 
more,  pray  without  ceasing,  in  every  thing  give  thanks, 
for  this  was  the  will  of  God  concerning  them;"  and  no 
cathedral  can  ever  adequately  express  Christ's  ideal  of 
a  house  of  prayer  for  all  nations,  unless  it  continues 
this  Apostolic  hymn  of  praise. 

While  the  Cathedral  of  our  Church  in  Washington 
must  stand  as  a  witness  for  the  simplicity  of  the  Gos- 
pel, and  inspire  men  to  live  the  life  portrayed  by  our 
Lord  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount ;  while  its  dim 
religious  light  ushers  us  into  that  same  atmosphere  of 
prayer  and  devotion  that  we  feel  in  the  great  cathedrals 
of  tUe  Middle  Ages ;  while  its  prophetic  message  to 
human  souls  proclaims  that  the  kingdom  of  Heaven  is 
at  hand,  when  the  earth  shall  be  full  of  the  knowledge 
of  the  Lord  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea ;  it  must  also 
set  forth,  as  the  source  of  all  inspiration,  the  Incarna- 
tion of  the  Son  of  God. 

The  Cathedral  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  while  it 
enshrines  whatever  attracts  us  in  the  Christian  archi- 
tecture of  the  past,  must,  above  all,  rise  to  those  sub- 
lime heights  of  faith  which  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul 
attained  ;  while  its  every  stone  cries  out,  "  Hosanna  to 
King  David's  Son,"  the  whole  majestic  pile  must  be  a 
great  Sursum  Corda,  proclaiming  to  all  people,  in  God's 
House  of  Prayer,  the  triumph  of  the  Cross,  the  majesty 
of  the  Ascended  Christ,  the  glory  of  His  growing  King- 
dom of  Heaven  on  earth,  and  the  love  of  our  Reigning 
King. 

The  Cathedral  Church  itself,  like  its  altar,  must  be 
an  Apostles'  Creed  in  stone. 


THE  FINANCIAL  OUTLOOK.  85 


APPENDIX. 
The  Financial  Outlook. 

In  January,  1898,  the  Cathedral  Foundation  possessed 
a  valuable  charter  from  Congress  and  eighteen  acres 
of  land ;  on  the  one  hand,  entirely  unsuited  for  its 
purposes,  and,  on  the  other,  encumbered  by  the  impos- 
sible condition  that  the  property  was  to  revert  back  to 
the  donors,  unless  buildings  costing  five  hundred 
thousand  dollars  were  erected  upon  it  before  1903. 

Before  the  ending  of  that  same  year — 1898 — the 
Cathedral  Foundation  had  come  into  full  possession  of 
Mount  Saint  Alban,  the  most  valuable  and  beautiful 
site  for  a  cathedral  in  the  whole  District  of  Columbia, 
covering  a  domain  of  over  thirty  acres  and  situated  in 
that  suburban  vicinity  which  will  be  undoubtedly  the 
centre  of  the  residential  part  of  Washington  within  this 
present  century.  For  this  property  $245,000  was  asked, 
and  the  land  was  bought,  leaving  $162,000  on  bond 
and  mortgage. 

The  efforts  of  the  Bishop  and  some  of  the  Board  of 
Trustees,  it  is  needless  to  say,  have  been  constant  and  un- 
remitted to  reduce  the  mortgage ;  and,  to-day,  those 
efforts  are  as  earnest  as  ever.  But  the  labor  has  been  an 
arduous  undertaking — for  the  permanent  inhabitants  of 
Washington,  with  scarcely  an  exception,  are  far  from 


86  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

wealthy  ;  while  such  transient  residents  as | statesmen, 
Government  officers,  Members  of  Congress  and  people  of 
large  means,  who  give  to  Washington  the  reputation  of 
a  wealthy  city,  really  look  upon  themselves,  as  a  rule, 
only  as  temporary  sojourners,  and  are  wont  to  feel  more 
public  spirit  in  the  church  work  and  the  religious 
and  social  conditions  of  the  cities  which  they  call  their 
home  than  in  Washington,  even  though  it  is  the  cap- 
ital of  the  United  States.  Under  such  circumstances, 
paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  by  far  the  largest  amount 
of  help  which  has  brought  the  Washington  Cathedral 
to  its  present  healthy  financial  condition  has  come 
from  those  far-seeing  and  public-spirited  churchmen  in 
various  parts  of  the  country  who  realise  the  important 
and  influential  position  which  this  Cathedral  is  destined 
to  occupy  in  the  future. 

In  this  connection  it  may  be  of  interest  to  state  that 
several  thousand  dollars  were  contributed  by  per- 
sons, in  various  parts  of  the  country,  in  the  following 
manner  : 

The  Cathedral  land  cost  nearly  twenty  cents  a  foot  ; 
and  shortly  after  it  was  bought,"  Founder's  Certificates  " 
were  issued  to  those  who  could  only  contribute  in  small 
sums,  stating,  first,  that  the  holder,  by  a  donation  of 
one  dollar  or  more,  had  given  so  many  square  feet  of 
land  (five  feet  for  $1.00 ;  twenty-five  feet  for  $5.00,  etc.) 
to  the  Cathedral  Foundation ;  and  secondly,  that  his 
or  her  name  would  be  inscribed  in  a  <l  Book  of  Remem- 
brance," to  be  kept  in  a  place,  specially  prepared  for  it, 
in  the  chancel  of  the  future  Cathedral.  Such  a  fire- 
proof receptacle  is  now  being  built  into  the  wall  of  the 


THE  FINANCIAL  OUTLOOK.  87 

Little  Sanctuary,  at  the  side  of  the  Jerusalem  Altar. 
Subscribers  are  constantly  asking  for  these  Founder's 
Certificates.  The  number  is  not  large,  but  they  belong 
to  widely-separated  dioceses  and  missionary  jurisdic- 
tions ;  they  show  that  there  is  a  widespread  interest 
among  church  people  in  the  Cathedral  at  the  capital 
of  the  country,  and  that  this  interest  is  lasting.  Occa- 
sionally offerings  of  several  hundred  dollars  have  thus 
been  made  for  the  redemption  of  the  land,  but,  as  a 
general  thing,  the  Founder's  Certificates  represent 
gifts  of  from  one  to  five  dollars. 

But  this  method  of  raising  necessary  funds  has  been 
very  slow.  While  there  are  encouraging  indications 
of  quite  a  general  interest  in  this  work,  it  is  confined, 
naturally,  to  the  comparatively  few,  who  behold  the 
national,  as  well  as  parochial  and  diocesan,  aspects  of 
the  Church's  responsibility,  and  comprehend  the  import- 
ance of  founding  this  great  Mission  Church  at  the 
capital  of  the  nation. 

For  the  sake  of  nationalising  such  an  Episcopal 
Cathedral  it  is  of  course  far  better  that  a  large  number 
of  persons  should  offer  small  gifts,  than  that  there  should 
be  a  small  number  of  large  benefactors.  But  this  can 
scarcely  be  expected  until  believers  in  Christ  and  His 
Church  generally  realise  the  object  and  purpose  of  the 
Washington  Cathedral. 

In  the  meantime,  financial  aid  for  immediate  needs 
has  been  absolutely  required.  The  interest  on  the 
mortgage  alone,  in  the  past  four  years,  has  been  more 
than  $25,000.  And,  therefore,  it  was  necessary  to 
appeal  to  those  who  could  give  in  far  greater  sums ; 


88  THE  BUILDING  OP  A  CATHEDRAL. 

and  their  response  has  been  so  generous  and  helpful 
that,  in  those  four  years  intervening  between  1898  and 
1902,  the  Cathedral  and  its  work  have  been  placed 
upon  a  much  more  enduring  basis. 

In  that  time,  the  debt  has  been  reduced  over 
$40,000,  and  all  interest  and  taxes  have  been  paid  to 
date.  The  Cathedral  School  has  been  built,  at  a  cost 
of  over  $200,000  ;  $30,000  more  has  been  raised  for  its 
furniture  and  equipment,  and  the  School,  in  the  first 
year  of  its  existence,  has  become  already  self-supporting. 
All  Hallow's  Gate  and  the  Little  Sanctuary  are  in 
course  of  erection.  Streets  have  been  opened  and 
houses  built,  in  the  immediate  neighborhood,  and  the 
land  has  correspondingly  arisen  in  value.  In  a  word, 
that  same  Cathedral  Foundation,  which  in  1898  pos- 
sessed nothing  in  the  way  of  available  assets,  has  to-day, 
four  years  later,  a  property  worth  more  than  $500,000, 
which  is  mortgaged  for  about  one-fourth  its  value. 

The  greatest  financial  need  at  the  preseut  day  is  the 
speedy  payment  of  the  mortgages  upon  the  Cathe- 
dral land,  aggregating  the  sum  of  $120,000.  These 
have  been  covered  by  notes,  held  by  various  parties, 
and  bearing  five  per  cent,  interest.  After  careful  con- 
sideration the  Board  of  Trustees  have  recently  made 
a  very  advantageous  arrangement  in  the  way  of  refund- 
ing this  debt.  They  have  paid  off  the  various  notes  ; 
made  a  single  mortgage  upon  the  property,  which  is 
now  covered  by  one  hundred  aud  twenty  notes  of  one 
thousand  dollars  each  ;  which  bear  four  and  a  half 
per  cent,  interest,  and  can  be  paid  off  at  any  time.    In 


THE  FINANCIAL  OUTLOOK.  89 

the  meantime  the  Bishop  is  straining  every  nerve  to 
raise  the  principal.* 

Nor  ought  this  to  be  a  difficult  task.  For  a  solid 
foundation  has  now  been  laid.  As  will  be  seen  by  every 
thoughtful  reader  who  peruses  these  pages,  the  educa- 
tional and  missionary  work  of  the  Cathedral  Founda- 
tion is  far  in  advance  of  the  building  itself,  and  the 
institution  is  now  in  a  position  to  command  justly  the 
confidence  of  the  community. 

These  are  perfectly  normal  conditions.  The  spiritual 
and  religious  need  is  far  greater  than  the  temporal 
supply.  Under  such  circumstances,  the  appeal  of  the 
Cathedral  Foundation  is  not,  primarily,  for  financial 
aid  but  for  a  true  understanding  and  intelligent  interest 
among  churchmen  at  large,  regarding  the  nature,  value 
and  efficiency  of  its  work.  If  the  actual  facts  were 
known  and  realised,  such  interest  would  naturally 
follow ;  and  in  proportion  to  this  inward  sympathy 
with  the  Cathedral  and  its  aims,  would  be  the  outward 
and  material  aid  afforded.  So  far  as  that  work  itself 
is  concerned,  the  progress  made  in  the  past  four  years, 
surpasses  all  anticipations.  And  if  financial  resources, 
commensurate  with  this  development,  have  not,  as  yet, 
been  supplied,  the  Cathedral  workers  must  patiently 
and  hopefully  bide  God's  good  time,  walking  by  faith 

*This  is,  in  fact,  considerably  less  than  the  amount  which  has 
already  been  raised  by  the  Bishop  of  Washington  during  the  past 
five  years,  for  in  that  time,  he  has  secured  from  the  few  who  have 
believed  in  the  Cathedral  of  Washington  from  its  beginning,  over 
$200,000  for  the  Cathedral  land,  the  Cathedral  School  and  the 
Cathedral  mission  work.  Yet  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the 
number  of  such  persons  known  to  the  Bishop  is  limited,  and  it  is 
ungenerous  to  expect  that  these  who  have  so  generously  stood 
in  the  breach  at  the  time  when  the  Cathedral  Foundation  most 
needed  help  should  bear  the  whole  burden. 


90  THE  BUILDING  OF  A  CATHEDRAL. 

and  not  by  sight,  with  thankful  hearts  for  what  has 
already  been  accomplished.  There  is  unquestionably 
need  of  such  patience,  for  they  can  not,  and  ought  not, 
to  shut  their  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  mortgage,  which 
still  rests  upon  the  land,  is  an  unpaid  debt.  This 
inevitably  gives  rise  to  a  mental  burden  of  uncertainty 
and  insecurity  which  will  never  be  dispelled  until  the 
mortgage  is  cleared  off.  All  are  looking  forward  to 
that  day  when  fresh  help  and  new  friends  will  be  found 
to  free  the  land  from  debt  and  create  a  general  feeling 
of  confidence  among  the  church  people  of  our  country 
in  the  Cathedral  of  Washington,  and  make  its  founda- 
tions absolutely  secure  and  permanent. 

When  one  hundred  and  twenty  persons  come  for- 
ward to  assume  each  the  payment  of  one  of  the 
thousand-dollar  notes,  the  whole  mortgage  upon  the 
land  will  be  cleared  off  and  the  Cathedral  Close  will 
be  freed  of  all  encumbrance.  If,  in  addition  to  this, 
$40,000  more  can  be  raised,  the  irregular  line  of  the 
Cathedral  property  on  the  east  and  south  will  be 
squared,  by  purchase  of  additional  lands,  so  that 
it  will  front  upon  Galveston  and  Thirty-fifth  streets 
in  the  same  way  that  it  now  fronts  upon  Mas- 
sachusetts and  Wisconsin  avenues  at  the  southwest  and 
west ;  and  upon  Woodley  road  at  the  north.  It  is  the 
unanimous  judgment  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  that 
these  additional  lots  should  be  secured  without  delay, 
and  none  are  more  urgent  than  those  business  men 
and  old  residents  of  the  city  who  have  closely  watched 
the  development  of  Washington  for  the  past  forty 
years. 


[Public— No.  14.  J, 

An   Act  to  incorporate   the    Protestant  Episcopal  Cathedral   Foundation  of    the 
District  of  Columbia. 

Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United 
States  of  America  in  Congress  assembled,  That  William  Paret,  John  S. 

B.  Hodges,  William  Keyser.  of  Maryland  ;  Melville  W.  Fuller,  Walter 
S.  Cox,  George  William  Douglas,  Randolph  H.  McKim.  Thomas  Lin- 
coln Casey,  John  G  Parke,  John  M.  Wilson,  Henry  E.  Pellew,  John 
A.  Kasson,  Charles  C.  Glover.  George  Truesdell,  E  Iward  J.  Stell- 
wagen,  Alexander  T.  Britton,  Calderon  Carlisle,  Henry  E.  Davis,  Theo- 
dore W.  Noyes,  of  the  District  of  Columbia  ;  Levi  P.  'Morton.  William 

C.  Whitney,  of  New  York  ;  George  W.  Childs,  Brinton  Coxe,  of  Penn- 
sylvania ;  JohnS.  Lindsay,  of  Massachusetts  ;  Marshall  Field,  of  Illinois; 
George  F.  Edmunds,  of  Vermont ;  George  W.  Curtis  Lee.  William 
Wirt  Henry,  of  Virginia,  their  associates  and  successors,  are  hereby 
constituted  a  body  politic  and  corporate  by  the  name  of  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Cathedral  Foundation  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  with 
power  to  sue  and  be  sued,  plead  and  be  impleaded,  and  have  perpetual 
succession  ;  to  acquire,  take  by  devise,  bequest,  or  otherwise,  hold, 
purchase,  encumber,  and  convey  such  real  and  personal  estate  as 
shall  be  required  for  the  purposes  of  its  incorporation  ;  to  make  and 
use  a  common  seal,  and  the  same  to  alter  at  pleasure  ;  to  choose  a  board 
of  trustees  consisting  of  not  more  than  fifteen,  of  whom  five  shall  con- 
stitute a  quoru.m  to  do  business,  and  which  board  shall  be  authorized 
to  fill  any  vacancies  in  their  number  ;  to  appoint  such  officers  and 
agents  as  the  business  of  the  corporation  shall  require,  and  to  make 
by-laws  for  the  accomplishment  of  its  purposes,  for  the  management  of 
its  property,  and  for  the  regulation  of  its  affairs :  Provided,  how 
That  bishop  of  the  diocese  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  of  the 
United  States  of  America  of  which  the  District  of  Columbia  shall  or 
may  form  the  whole  or  a  part  shall  be  ex  officio  one  ot  said  trustees 
and  shall  be  chairman  thereof:  And  further  provided.  That  no  part  of 
the  property  of  said  corporation  shall  be  aliened  or  encumbered  without 
the  written  coucurrenceof  the  said  bishop  of  thediocese  aforesaid.  Said 
corporation  is  hereby  empowered  to  establish  and  maintain  within  the 
District  of  Columbia  a  cathedral  and  institutions  of  learning  for  the 
promotion  of  religion  and  education  and  charity.  The  said  corporation 
shall  have  power  to  grant  and  confer  diplomas  and  the  usual  college 
and  university  degrees  and  honorary  degrees,  and  also  such  other 
powers  as  may  be  necessary  fully  to  carry  out  and  execute  the  general 
purposes  of  the  said  corporation  as  herein  appearing. 

Skc.  2.  This  act  may   be  amended  or  repealed  at   any  time  by  the 
Congress  in  its  pleasure. 

roved,  January  6,  1893. 


The  Cathedral  Charter 


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